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Lori Gracey

Lori Gracey currently serves as the executive director of the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) and is responsible for training technology directors, administrators, curriculum supervisors, librarians, and teachers across the country. Since 2009, she has led TCEA in membership and revenue growth, helped to pay off their building and purchase a new, larger building, and implemented new conferences, partnerships with other associations, and professional development opportunities for members and non-members. She serves more than 75,000 members and oversees a staff of 20. Lori has served on the board of the Texas Society of Association Executives and SXSWedu, and she has served as the Regional Program Chair for the ISTE 2017 and 2021 Convention in San Antonio. Lori has 28 years of experience in education, with 22 years as a curriculum and technology director.

Coding/Computer ScienceContent AreasDigital LiteracyEducational TrendsGood Teaching

Tips, Tricks, and Tech Tidbits: Fire Safety, Halloween, Hybrid Learning, and More

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

I’ve discovered some really cool tech tools and tips to share with you this week, including a couple of must-see ones for fall. So let’s dive right in.

Fire Safety and Prevention Resources

This site offers lots of fun resources for elementary students about Fire Prevention Week (October 4-10, 2020) and fire safety. It includes two different ebooks, choice boards, videos, and more.

Halloween Scratch Lesson: Spooky Clones

This cute lesson plan for upper elementary to middle school students includes an opening video for engagement and then four lessons to help students create a “scary” game. Note: You must request the lessons via email from the creator (form included in the website).

Six Requirements for Successful Hybrid Learning

Mark Anderson, the ICTEvengelist, shared what has to be in place in order for hybrid teaching and learning to be successful. If any one of the eight items below are missing, then failure may result. How are you making sure to provide all of these if you or your teachers are leading hybrid teaching?

tips

Noise Canceling App

If you need to record a video for your students or staff to watch, but find that the noise in your classroom or at home is interfering, then check out Krisp. The app is available for Macintosh and Windows computers and will mute both microphone noise and background noise for 120 minutes/week for free. There are examples of how good the app is on the website that let you hear what it sounds like with and without muting. It works on 800+ communication programs including Zoom, Teams, and Meet.

Weekly Tech Tips

K-2 technology integration specialist Traci Plitz provides a fabulous weekly tip sheet for her teachers. You can scroll through them and see the past weeks, as well as the current one. While they are designed for use in primary classrooms, many of them can be applied K-12.

Have Your Students Publish to the World

The Global Writing Project is a free weekly writing experience for all ages, a place where learners can write about the world with the world. With a weekly prompt, students can submit their writing via Flipgrid, Buncee, or Wakelet and be provided with an authentic global audience and an opportunity to be showcased as part of their weekly “Global Write” Champions Corner.

Release Your Inner Artist

I admit to being old enough to remember fondly the hours I spent creating with the Spirograph, a fabulous drawing tool for those of us who can’t draw. Now there’s a free, online version available called Inspirograph. Since you’re using your mouse instead of a pen or pencil, it’s a little bit harder to maneuver. But it’s still tons of fun and very relaxing in these stress-filled days.

A New Tech Tool to Improve Your Virtual Self

David Jakes shares his new favorite tech tool, mmhmm. “This is a tool that provides a series of new options to improve your virtual presence – in my case Zoom (it also works with Google Meet, and Chrome or Firefox only). The basic idea of mmhmm is that it provides a virtual camera interface for Zoom that gives you some interesting new features.” The tool is currently in private beta, but you can request an invitation here.

Student Avatars

TCEA’s own Lisa Monthie offers this cool tidbit that she picked up from Tammy G. Neil (both are great educators to follow on Twitter!). Have the students create an avatar with https://avatarmaker.com/ and “then use a tool such as https://gifmaker.me/ to make a GIF of all the students.”

Halloween Videos for Elementary Students

Celebrate each day of October leading up to Halloween with a different video. This article provides 31 cute and learning-filled shorts for younger students.

Getting Your Students Moving

We know that movement is crucial for learning, and here’s a fun way to put it into practice. Spin It is a random movement and exercise generator. At its default, it includes some very tough exercises like planks and wall sits. But the really cool thing about the spinner is that you can customize it for your students to be much simpler and less exhausting. Put in silly things like hopping five times on one foot or rubbing your stomach and your head at the same time. Mix it up, get students moving, and get them laughing!

That’s all of the tidbits for this time. If you missed any of the previous tips, you can find them all by searching our blog for “tips, tricks, and tech tidbits.” Let me know if any of today’s or earlier tips helped you.

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Tips, Tricks, and Tech Tidbits: Science, Assessment, Math, and More

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

I’m back with more interesting tidbits that I’ve picked up around the web and through emails and conversations with dedicated educators. I hope that you find some useful nuggets to use! (By the way, you can find the previous goodies here, here, here, and here.)

Science Journal for Kids and Teens

If you’re looking for non-fiction articles that are scholarly but also appropriate for students, take a look at the free Science Journal for Kids and Teens. The website includes hundreds of articles approved by scientists written for kids. While most of the articles I found were best suited for secondary students, there are a few for elementary. The site also offers a very nice filtering system, allowing you to search by reading level, scientific field, scientific methodology (a world of learning there for high school students), and more. There are even a few articles written in languages other than English.

Seven Little Words Strategy

Educator Erica Ramirez provides a powerful formative or summative assessment of student learning using Google’s Jamboard and the Seven Little Words strategy.

A Simpler Wikipedia

If you or your students are using Wikipedia as a starting point for research on complicated topics, there is a way to get a simpler version of most of their content. This link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics) provides their normal article on quantum mechanics, definitely a tough topic to get through. But by just replacing the “en” with the word “simple” in the URL, you get a much easier to read and understand article (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics). This works for almost all of their topics and would be a good trick to teach your high school students.

How to Have a Trouble Huddle with Students

It’s easy to get so bogged down in all that we have to accomplish in the classroom each day that we don’t really see the students. One technique that can help with that when problems arise is a trouble huddle, explained very clearly in this blog.

Using Google Slides in Virtual Math Classes

Personally, it would take a lot to make math interesting to me. I just never grasped all of its basic points. But I might have learned more about it if my teachers had access to Google Slides and these ideas for virtual learning. The article offers “five ways to teach mathematics online with Google Slides while promoting student collaboration and maintaining the integrity of effective mathematics instruction.”

An Alternative to the Bitmoji Classroom

High school teacher Emily Huff didn’t want to do the “cutesy” Bitmoji classroom for her older students. So she created a Netflix-like landing page for her Spanish class. She downloaded the original template from this blog and then changed it up to better fit what her students are familiar with.

Zoom Games

If you’re looking for a quick brain break for your students to help combat “Zoom fatigue,” try one of these 20 fun (and fast) games. Ranging from short movement breaks to fun learning activities to silly games versus the teacher, these can be done in any virtual learning platform and are sure to bring a smile.

#ScratchPals

Wouldn’t it be great for your students to collaborate with students around the world to “Code the World You Wish to See?” You can by joining in this free event that starts October 1, 2020. Students use Scratch as a platform for creative expression, #TeachSDGs for inspiration, and #DigCit to respectfully collaborate. You can register here or learn more about it here.

Online Whiteboards

This article offers three free online whiteboards that you can use with your students or in professional development that is held either face-to-face or virtually. All three offer great collaboration opportunities.

I hope that you find that these tips and tricks can help you in your daily journey to be the best educator you can be. Let me know in the comments below if these are “spot on” or if there are other topics that I need to be researching.

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Good Teaching

Teaching in a Hybrid Classroom

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

We thought that it was hard enough teaching virtually to our students when COVID-19 first appeared last spring. But now, the stakes have been raised as many educators are asked to teach both virtually and with students in the classroom at the same time. This new hybrid model of learning has to be the most difficult way to teach there is.

The Concept

Designed to add options for concerned parents, many school districts have allowed them to choose whether their children will attend school virtually or in person. This results in a mixed environment with the teacher managing both groups of learners at the same time.

Typically, both sets of students have a device to use for their work. That means that they are all given the same opportunities to participate in class discussions and take part in whole-class learning games and activities, all done at the same time together.

The Reality for Teachers

For the teacher, providing learning experiences in a hybrid classroom often means planning two sets of lessons for each class period. There is also more of a need to be able to check in with students, especially those learning virtually, throughout the day to help with questions and make sure their work is on target. In addition, building community in the mixed class takes more time and work as you endeavor to make sure all students are connected and engaged.

Best Practices for the Hybrid Classroom

Having students at home simply “zoom in” for the face-to-face teaching doesn’t work well. Instead, we have to modify our teaching strategies. Here are some best practices for doing so. (Please note that you shouldn’t simply pick one of these models and use it all of the time. Different learning needs will dictate which one to use when. And, of course, it may work best for both you and your students to use a blending of all of these models or to use different models on different days or for different types of learning.)

John Spencer offers five models for the hybrid classroom (below). He also has short video explanations of each of the five and some tips and tricks for implementing them.

hybrid classroom

Common Sense Education provides six important considerations in its article How to Plan for Hybrid Teaching and Learning. The six things to remember are:

  • Focus on well-being and relationships
  • Different modes, different strategies (with some good advice about which activities work best for which learning environment)
  • Aim for consistent communication
  • Don’t overwhelm with tech tools
  • Emphasize digital citizenship

Dr. Catlin Tucker offers three different models for a “concurrent classroom:” station rotation, flipped learning, and playlist or individual rotation model (shown below). For all of them, she emphasizes the need to provide that human connection with each student. She also includes some short video snippets about the different models, their benefits, and tips for each.

hybrid classroom

Alverno College has this PDF of best practices for teaching in a hybrid environment. While it is designed for older learners, I do think there is some information of value for all ages there. I especially liked this advice from it:

If students are responsible for readings, videos, resources, etc., create an activity to verify your students have done the readings and watched the videos, whether it is a low ­stakes quiz, a discussion group, etc. Or create an activity for students to apply what they learned. Otherwise, even the best students will eventually ignore the readings, videos, resources, etc.

A three-station rotation model (shown below) is recommended by Eric Sheninger. Designed to fit into a 50-minute class period, the three stations are preceded by a 10-minute mini-lesson and followed by a 10-minute formative assessment/closing. Sheninger provides some ideas and resources for implementing this model in your hybrid classroom.

hybrid classroom

Common Sense Education provides six important considerations in its article How to Plan for Hybrid Teaching and Learning. The six things to remember are:

  • Focus on well-being and relationships
  • Different modes, different strategies (with some good advice about which activities work best for which learning environment)
  • Aim for consistent communication
  • Don’t overwhelm with tech tools
  • Emphasize digital citizenship

And For Administrators

If you are a campus or district leader who is charged with helping teachers to implement this hybrid model, please be patient and understanding. After all, none of us were trained for this situation: not the teachers, the students, or the parents and guardians. Embrace the chaos that may occur and support the dedication and hours of work that your educators are putting in to make learning happen for all students.

How are you managing hybrid teaching? I’d love to hear from you about what works and what hasn’t worked in your classroom. Please share in the comments below.

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Good Teaching

Movement Breaks for Better Learning

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

Research conducted over the past 25 years has clearly revealed the value that short, frequent “movement breaks” can have on learning and student health in general. Here’s what some of the research on this topic says:

  • The part of the brain that processes movement is the same part of the brain that processes learning (Middleton & Strick, 1994).
  • People who exercise have far more cortical [brain] mass than those who don’t (Anderson, Eckburg, & Relucio, 2002).
  • Standing can raise the heart rate (hence, blood flow) by as much as five to eight percent in just seconds (Krock & Hartung, 1992).
  • Exercise improves classroom behavior and academic performance (Dwyer, Sallis, Blizzard, Lazarus, & Dean, 2001).
  • Students who are engaged in daily physical education programs consistently show not just superior motor fitness, but better academic performance and a better attitude toward school than students who do not participate in daily P.E. (Donevan & Andrew, 1986).

To put it simply, taking a short break to stretch or walk around or just move helps learning. You can read more about all of the research on the importance of movement and exercise here.

Now’s the Time

Admittedly, it may be hard to get 28 students up and moving in your ELA classroom during a regular school year. But right now, with students either learning from home or in smaller groups at school, is the perfect time to help them embrace the benefits of movement and exercise. So, how can you get started?

Movement Breaks

Here are a few resources you can use to get your students (and yourself!) up and moving to increase blood flow to the brain and so much more.

25 Brain Break Videos for the Classroom is perfect for elementary students and may help them to “get their wiggles out.” They can all be done while practicing social distancing and don’t take a lot of space, either at home or at school.

The BrainPrimers website allows you to download eight free activities to get your students’ minds and bodies engaged. (Disclaimer: You must give them your email address to download the activities. They also sell additional BrainPrimers.)

Don’t let the title fool you. Our Favorite Virtual PE Resources to Keep Students Moving at Home is perfect for both the classroom and home and includes activities for all ages from preschool to high school. And they aren’t just for PE!

Download these free Movement Breaks for Virtual Learning Slides and get your students stretching and moving. Change out the graphics and you can use them with older students, too.

I found this cute way of using pool noodles for cardio desk drumming. Watch the video for the full routine for students to follow along.

Add Movement, Brain Breaks to Learning While Social Distancing or Virtual Learning adds even more ways to get your younger students moving (and they work for in-the-classroom activities, too). My personal favorite from this site is having students stand up and do different arm movements or hop on one foot to show their answers to questions. What fun!

“Jump Around!” The Benefits of Movement in the Online Learning Process has some great activities for teachers to use to ensure that we, too, are getting the movement that we need. It also encourages us to take part in the activities we ask our students to do.

Truscott Elementary School offers these Brain Energizers for both elementary and secondary students. I especially liked their Take a Break Teacher Toolkit, which features more than 100 one to five-minute breaks for 6th through 12th grade students.

Get your younger kids moving for five minutes as they exercise as if they were the Avengers. The site includes a fun video for them to watch and emulate.

Taking a movement break doesn’t have to be hard. You can ask students, whether at home or at school, to grab a stuffed animal, pillow, or small ball (something NOT breakable or hard) and throw it up gently in the air and catch it for a set number of minutes, counting as they go. Clap for the person with the most catches when time is up. To make it harder for older students, ask them to do it one-handed or make the catch behind their back or under their leg.

Sometimes, simply standing can be the break your students need. Put them into pairs in breakout rooms (or in your classroom, but socially distanced) and have them stand to play rock, paper, scissors with a partner. Or put them in groups of up to five and have them count from 1 to 40 with each student adding one number. To make it more difficult, they can’t actually say the number they are at. Instead, they have to use words or math problems to represent the number. For example, for the number 12, they could say “6+6” or “one dozen” or “the number of months in the year.”

One More Thing About Movement

The research is also clear that you don’t have to have your students run a marathon to see benefits. Many simple, less strenuous play-oriented movements have the capacity to improve cognition, including the following: solitary play (doing puzzles, object manipulation), outdoor learning activities (digging, observing insects), stand and stretch activities (tai chi, Simon Says), constructive play (building with blocks, model building), exploratory play (hide and seek, scavenger hunts, make-believe), individual competitive games (marbles, track and field, hopscotch), and walking excursions (outdoors, indoors), to name a few. So think about how you can include one of these activities regularly in your classes.

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Digital LiteracyWriting

Email Writing for Students

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

Most of us have been using email for a large portion of our lives. So it’s natural to assume that everyone knows how to send a “good” email. But that’s definitely not true, especially for students. Just like any other skill, learning to send a meaningful, accurate, and polite email must be taught. Let’s look at how we as educators can do that.

Age-Appropriate Email Strategies

Depending on the age of the student, the following tips are appropriate (from the article Email Etiquette for Students):

Elementary School:

  • Using proper sentence structure
  • Spell checking
  • Privacy for both the student and the recipient(s)

Middle School:

  • Thinking before clicking Send
  • What to share and what not to share
  • Basic courtesies in email and texting

High School:

  • When to email or text and when not to
  • Not all communications should be emoji or acronym based
  • How to clearly communicate with you mean

College:

  • How grammar and approach can leave an impression
  • How to use email for employment opportunities
  • Portraying a serious intent and professional tone

Start with the Basics of Writing an Email

As a former English teacher, I would begin helping students learn about emails by discussing that writing an email is a different type of writing than, say, writing a text message or a legal document or a joke. There are certain ways that it should be done. Then I would show them this easy-to-understand infographic.

The five steps above, if followed, would result in a polite, informative, email that is a call to action to resolve some problem or question. (Please note that, while this is formulaic writing, something I don’t normally believe in, I do feel that it would work well as an introduction to students on the art of composing an email. Once they’ve mastered it, they can branch off on their own more.)

I would go over this with the students and then pull up several example emails that I had created previously, having the whole class talk through how they could be improved. For each email, I would ask the students, sometimes in pair, sometimes alone, to think through the five steps to see if there were changes in any of them that needed to be made. For me, I would use these as my examples in this order (from simple to more complex):

  • An email with no greeting or closing
  • An email that doesn’t state the problem or question
  • An email that has too long or too short a subject line

Next, ask students what information they think would need to be added to the five steps to help a busy teacher. (Perhaps the class period of the student?) I would then talk about voice in writing and how, since this email is going to their teacher and not a friend, it needs to be grammatically correct. That’s a good time to show them the spell checker and how to use it. This is also a great time to show them how to create their own signature for an email, even several (one for more formal messages and also an informal one for their friends or family).

Finally, I would ask students when sending an email may not be a good idea. I would hope they would come up with when they are angry or when it’s an urgent matter that really needs a face-to-face (or Zoom to Zoom) discussion. They might also say that a student shouldn’t send an email if he/she can just ask the teacher the next day (for something minor).

Putting It into Practice

Before turning your students loose with email, it would be good to have them practice first. Here are two different ways to do that (taken from Classroom Activities: Email).

Class Email

Foster new friendships and help students practice their reading and writing skills. Pair students up in the classroom (or with students in other classrooms) and have them exchange email addresses. Ask one to write a message to the other and start an email change. You may want them to write about a specific topic, such as a response to an issue or a piece of writing, or you may want them to just share what happened that day. Once your students are comfortable with this, they could become e-pen pals with students in another city, state, or country!

Community Leaders

Many government and community leaders, such as the mayor, governor, and even President of the United States, have email addresses that people can write to and share their thoughts. Discuss different issues in the community with your students. What can be changed? What seems unfair? What issues should leaders be working on or improving? Brainstorm different ideas and then have students write emails to their community or government leaders. Remind them that in formal messages, they should refrain from abbreviations and emoticons.

Writing an Email Resources

To help your students learn more about the art of email creation, here are a few good resources:

An Additional Resource

Thanks to Lindsay Foster from Gainsville ISD who created two wonderful infographics to share with GISD students from the information in this blog. One of them is in English and the other is in Spanish. Perhaps you could use these as a starting point for an infographic for your students!

writing an email

*This blog post was updated with new content on August 19, 2021.

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iOS Tips and Tricks

Finding Educational and/or Free iOS Apps

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

Searching among the myriad of iOS apps that are released every single day can be a nightmare. And, if you’re a teacher on a tight budget, finding those gems that have also gone free for the day or week is even more difficult. Here are some tips to help, along with a few good resources.

If you want to improve your iPad skills and gain even more educational resources to use with the device, check out the TCEA iPad Educator online, self-paced course. Priced at only $29, the course provides lots of how-to videos and content, including a module on teaching remotely with the iPad, as well as a digital badge, certificate, and 12 CPE hours.

Finding Good Educational Apps to Meet Specific Needs

Let’s be honest. Finding a good app to use for teaching something like exponents (or any other topic students study in schools) in the App Store is almost impossible. Its search engine is weak and skewed toward paid apps. Luckily, there are two others we can use to get better results. First, check out The App Store.

Although it looks simple at first glance (below), you’ll soon notice all of the different ways you can filter and search. On the left, you can search for iPhone, iPad, and MacOS devices. If you click on the pink box with the funnel on the right, you can filter by a variety of needs, including last updated, ratings (yes!), price (any, free, or paid), categories, and ages. This makes it extremely powerful and useful. You can also browse the top apps to see if there are any that you’ve missed; after all, if everyone else likes them, they might be good for you and your students, too.

iOS apps

In my example search for the broad topic of “exponents,” it returns just 49 results. That may not seem like enough. But as you can see below, it brought back some jewels for me to pick from. (Of course, no search engine is perfect. You’ll notice it also returned “AutoFax Vehicle History Report.”) As you type in the search word or phrase, it also makes recommendations for you.

iOS apps

One other good search tool for iOS apps is Fnd. Again, it starts off simply, as you can see below. I used the same “exponents” search as before. What’s nice about Fnd is that it searches not just apps, but also music, movies, TV, books, Mac, and podcasts (who knew there were so many podcasts about exponents?).

iOS apps

Finding Free or Sale iOS Apps

What’s even better than finding a great app to use with your students is to find that great app on sale or even free. Here are three websites that can help (listed in order of my personal preference for the value they provide).

iOSnoops provides lists of apps that have gone on sale, are free, or are new each day and once on the weekend. They don’t list all of the apps that meet those three criteria, but do list most of the ones that people might be interested in. Scroll down toward the bottom of each list to find the education and books categories.

Today’s Apps Gone Free shares just free apps each day and once on the weekends. Their list is very short, usually only three or four, but they are usually great apps. Unfortunately, they are often not educational. Still, I am usually able to pick up a bargain there at least once a week.

Finally, there’s the AppShopper, the most comprehensive list of changes in app pricing. You can specify for iPad or all iOS, updated apps, new apps, and price drops. You can also search just for free apps. I found I got the best search returns when I left it on Price down, All, All, and then changed the All Categories to Books and then, when I was done searching there, to Education. Clicking on the Buy button will allow you to see more information about each app (without actually buying it yet).

iOS apps

AppShopper also allows you to create a free account on its site and then mark what apps you are interested in. If the price drops on those apps, the site will notify you by email, which is a very nice feature.

Last Thoughts on iOS Apps

If you’re going to be purchasing 20 or more of the same app, remember to use the Apple Volume Purchase Program which can provide a significant discount on the purchase price of the app, even when it’s on sale. More information about the program can be found here.

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Tips, Tricks, and Tech Tidbits: Progress Trackers, Librarian Toolkit, and More

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

In surfing the amazing world of educational technology recently, I’ve found more treasures to share with you. (If you missed the previous three blogs on this topic, be sure to check them out here, here, and here.)

Digital Progress Trackers for Google Form Practice

If you’re looking for ways that your students can keep track of their progress, check out these free digital trackers. There is one version with 30 spaces already created for you and an editable table that includes 25 spaces. The site also includes how to best use these with your students.

Lexend Fonts for Increased Readability

These fonts “are research based and shown to increase fluency and readability,” according to Mr. Zielinski. You can add them to any of your Google documents.

The Epic Book of Web Tools and Apps

More than 200 pages of apps and ed tech tools crowd-sourced by educators all over the world, this free book is bound to have some new things for you to try. It also includes “user-friendly tips in its screen shots, cheat sheets, video tutorials and hyperlinks to lots of additional goodies.” You do have to register to receive the free ebook.

And For Librarians

If you’re a librarian, you will love the Digital Librarian’s Survival Toolkit, again with more than 200 pages and full of crowd-sourced goodness. You will need to register to receive the free ebook.

Differentiation for Remote Learning

This graphic from ASCD shares best practices for how to differentiate four ways (content, process, product, and learning environment) while teaching virtually.

tips and tricks

Morning Meeting Calendar

If you’re an elementary teacher who uses the morning meeting calendar to teach with, then you will love this resource. There are six slides included: yearly calendar, weather, season, and three on the days of school. Make a copy of it here.

Teaching Math Procedures with Social Distancing and Distance Learning

Elementary math teachers will love all of the work that teacher Ashleigh has already done for you in these resources. Based on the math workshop process, she breaks the learning into small chunks and provides details on how each section should work.

Interactive Slides for Any Content or Grade Level

And finally, Theresa Wills has shared (under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license) a ton of templates that you can copy and use for a wide variety of activities and learning strategies. She also offers math manipulatives and elementary math lessons.

Let me know if you found any of these tips and tricks helpful. And be on the lookout for part 5 of this series!

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Tips, Tricks, and Tech Tidbits – Part 3

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

Here are a few more cool ideas for teaching and learning that I’ve discovered recently. You can read my previous tips and tricks here and here.

Online Math Manipulatives

If you’re needing some math manipulatives that don’t have to be wiped down after each use, check out these that are perfect for virtual learning. The first is Base-10 Blocks for Google Slides by Mike Flynn (make your own copy here). The second is a great Google Doc by the Techie Teacher (Julie Smith) that acts an an interactive center with links to all kinds of ways to learn math.

Make Yourself Happy

Want to encourage your brain to release chemicals that make us happy? Take a look at the activities below that will accomplish exactly that.

tips and tricks

Another Way to Take a Break

And while we’re on the subject of staying happy during these difficult times, take a look at WindowSwap. This website allows you to look out the window from different locations all around the world. Some of the windows even have sounds with them. I found it very relaxing and a nice break.

SEL Strategies

Checking in on how your students are feeling is critical, especially when everyone is apart. This article has five Social Emotional Learning (SEL) ways to see how your students are feeling, including printable mood cards.

Digital Notebooks

SlidesMania has created a nice set of free digital notebooks for both PowerPoint and Google Slides. These would be most appropriate for 5th through 12th graders and can be customized as to color and view (portrait or landscape). To use them, the teacher would first add your own titles/assignments and then have students make a copy of them to use.

Great Poster for Your Virtual Classroom

Theresa Wills has created this fabulous poster on what students can expect from their teacher. It would look great in your virtual classroom!

tips and tricks

School-Safe Meme Generator Using Google Drawings

One clever teacher had her students create memes for each of the standard school rules they must follow. She created a Google Drawings template for them to use and the students loved the activity. To make it safe, a variety of images were included on the side of the slide and they could only use those.

Teacher Rachel Michael has created an amazing Padlet of resources for elementary students and their teachers. The Padlet is divided into categories (virtual field trips, movement breaks, read alouds, creating art, reading online, podcasts to listen to, self care, science, and more). In each category, there are then tons of great links, all of which are free. Rachel also has another Padlet on the Genius Hour projects her third grade students did (be patient; it takes a little bit to fully load).

I hope you found at least one of these tips and tricks useful. I’ll be back soon with even more!

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Good Teaching

Lesson Plan Template for Remote Learning

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

If you’ll be teaching remotely to some or all of your students this fall, it’s important to have a clear lesson plan format to follow. Your district has probably provided you with one in the past. But has it been updated to fit remote teaching and learning? Here is a sample lesson plan template designed for when students who will be learning remotely; it should work for any subject or grade level and is based on the latest research. I’ve purposely kept it simple for ease of use. Feel free to add whatever additional content you want or need.

remote learning

The Format of the Remote Learning Lesson Plan

To make things simple, this lesson plan sample has three broad sections: Introduction, Learning, and Closing. The Introduction section contains information about the following:

  • The topic or unit of study
  • The length of time to be spent on the topic in this lesson
  • Learner objectives
  • Connection
  • Focus activity

The learner objectives are critical, and what makes them work for long-term learning is that students are able to answer three questions about what they are studying:

  • What am I learning?
  • Why am I learning it?
  • How will I know when I have learned it?

That means that the students must clearly understand the standards being taught and the level to which they must master the standards. This should be stated in language that the students, regardless of age, can understand. Specificity is key. It’s not enough for them to say “I’m learning how to add.” Instead, they must be able to define that they are “learning how to add two digit numbers.”

The connection piece is most important for remote learning. It’s how you are going to help the students (and yourself) continue to bond with each other. This is where you can use some Social Emotional Learning (SEL) activities, ice breakers, getting to know you’s, or other similar strategies. The key is to help students remain connected even though they are distant from each other.

Finally, the focus activity helps to center the students in what they will be learning in this lesson. It could be something as simple as them sharing what they learned the previous day, a short video to gain their interest, an opening activity to raise questions, or a quick KWL about what they already know about the topic. The key here is to get their minds targeted on the learning that is about to take place, to get them focused.

Content Time

While not an elegant name for this section, it’s here that the real work of learning begins. In a remote classroom, there can basically be two types of activities: synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous activities are those that happen with all of the students in the class at the same time. This could be from you, from online resources, from other students, etc. But the main thing is that all of the students are doing it at the same time. The activities, however, can vary from student to student, depending on how you have decided to differentiate. It’s the timing that makes this unique.

Asynchronous learning occurs next as students go off on their own (or in small groups) to learn. The teacher is not directly involved. This may mean they are working math problems, watching a video, writing a paper, or doing a hands-on activity outside of assigned class time. For successful asynchronous learning, the student must first understand the concepts being taught. It is a complete waste of time to have them practice something they do not understand and may even result in them learning the content the wrong way.

There is also a place in this section of the lesson plan template to list the resources students or the teacher will be using to master the content. This is for both synchronous and asynchronous learning.

Closing Out the Remote Learning Lesson Plan

The final section of the lesson plan is where we see how successful the students have been in their learning. There is assessment followed by student reflection on their own processes and results of learning. Additional resources are provided by the teacher for those who want to extend their mastery or need additional support.

Lastly, there is a place in the lesson plan for reminders to the students (deadlines, upcoming quizzes or tests, important announcements, etc.). It is also important, especially in remote learning, to provide information on where the students can go to get additional help. This could be virtual “office hours” or a tutor or extra videos or resources that explain the content differently than it has already been presented. I’ve even seen a teacher post a “panic button” in her Google Classroom that students can click on when they are struggling; the button creates an instant email to the teacher for help. All of this is designed to remind students that, although they are working remotely, they are not alone.

This remote lesson plan is very simple, but I hope it can act as a starting point for you in thinking about how to craft your teaching differently for remote learning. If you would like additional help in creating the best remote learning experiences for your students, check out the online, self-paced Remote Learning Educator Certification course. Priced at just $49 (less when 10 or more registrations are purchased), the course features six modules that include best practices, video how-to’s, and tips and tricks for communication, designing remote lessons, social and emotional learning, teaching platforms, and safety and security. You can also find more than 50 videos on remote learning available here.

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remote station
Good Teaching

The First Week of Remote School

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

As many teachers prepare to “do school” remotely again, at least for part of the time this year, they are thinking about those critical first days of school and how to make them meaningful. As we all know, the first week can set the tone for the whole year. It’s THE time to start building a relationship with each student and them with each other. But how do you foster and promote the development of personal classroom relationships in a virtual environment? I believe that high school English teacher Angelina Murphy has found a great solution.

Remote Station Activities

Angelina has created a digital “First Day of School Station activity that includes both synchronous collaboration and asynchronous work.” Using a copied Google Slide deck for each of her students, Flipgrid, and Schoology as her Learning Management System (LMS), she has students working at virtual stations, both alone and together, to get to know her and each other. Her five stations, which can be completed each day spread out over the first week or in just one or two days, are designed to allow her to learn more about each student, encourage collaboration, and help them practice their tech skills in a low-stakes way. They work in small groups for two of the stations and by themselves for the other three.

remote station

Here’s the station schedule:

  • Station 1 has the students introducing themselves using Flipgrid. It’s a great way for the teacher to start to put a name with each face and to also hear how to correctly pronounce the student’s name. The students also complete a Google Form so that they can tell the teacher a little more about themselves.
  • Station 2 targets the syllabus and logistics of the class. After reading what is posted, students are asked to respond to two questions: What is one thing you notice? and What is one thing you wonder?
  • Station 3 has the students create an “identity slide” in Google Slides. They are to place at least eight different images (their own photos or graphics they find on the web) on a slide that showcases their hobbies, favorite TV shows, what they are passionate about, etc. The teacher has provided a sample slide about herself for them to look at.
  • Station 4 is all about getting to know each other. In groups of four (in a Zoom breakout room), students must learn their classmates’ names, favorite snack, favorite book/movie/music, etc. and share that via a Google Slide.
  • Station 5 again has students work in small groups to create and share community statements about how they will treat each other. Once their lists are combined, the whole class will develop shared statements about how they will learn together moving forward.

Other Station Considerations

While this was designed for high school students, I believe it can work with almost any age group or content area. You could add more stations, change them to include more group work or more individual work, add in a family component for them to complete together, whatever you want. It’s a very flexible way of getting to know each other.

Angelina has been kind enough to share her slide deck so that anyone can make a copy of it and use it. You can find the template here.

Another Station Idea for the First Week of School

Jennifer Calderon, an assistant principal, offers another great example of stations for the opening of school. Her “Getting to Know You” slide deck has six stations that act as a review (or tutorial) of some key technology skills. They include the following:

  • Station 1 – inserting a video of your favorite music
  • Station 2 – timeline of your life
  • Station 3 – favorite place
  • Station 4 – drawing with the Shapes tool to show your favorite school supply
  • Station 5 – Word Art with your favorite quote
  • Station 6 – creating tables with your favorites

You can preview her deck here or make a copy of it here.

Here are a few other ways to build SEL (Social Emotional Learning) into the first week of school, whether you are remote or face to face:

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