Category:

Online Tools and Apps

Discover innovative online tools for education. Explore strategies and resources to enhance teaching, learning, and collaboration in the digital age.

Organizationally Challenged? ME to the Rescue

by Lori Gracey January 15, 2018

written by Lori Gracey

All of us are busy today, whether we are adults or students. Remembering all of the things that we need to get done and, more importantly, when they have to be done by, can be a major task. Technology resources like Google Calendar can certainly help. But what’s been missing is a central “brain” to keep track of everything in one place for us. And that’s where AI (Artificial Intelligence) comes in.

Over the past year or so, Amazon has introduced the Echo, a device designed to help us better manage our busy lives. And Google followed with Google Home. While absolutely fantastic, both of these are appliance solutions that require you to purchase a device. If you’re not where the device is, then it can’t help you. So these kinds of resources aren’t very useful for students at school.

What the ME Organizer Can Do for You

ME is a new web-based solution that is focused on “improving your daily life.” It is a virtual assistant that uses artificial intelligence to help us be more efficient and organize our lives. It lives on your favorite messaging platforms, such as Messenger, Telegram, SMS, Slack, and Alexa (coming soon), and is available 24/7.

For starters, here’s what this new resource can do:

Manages lists and sends you timed reminders
Remembers events or important information for instant recall
Manages your calendar
Calls you to wake you up
Provides weather updates
Sends you jokes when you’re having a bad day

Educational Uses of ME

Now all of the above features can also be handled by devices like the Amazon Echo. But again, ME can be with you anywhere you go, which makes it a natural for students to use in school. We know that organizational skills are critical to surviving and thriving in today’s world. But we don’t spend much time actually teaching kids how to be organized as we might need to. ME is a great tool for them to use for managing their assignments and homework, meetings and events, and important things they need to remember. Best of all, the service is completely FREE! Students can get started using ME simply by picking a communication system that will work on their device.

Our schedules aren’t going to get any less busy. So finding the perfect tool to help manage our busy lives is important. Share the ME organizer with your students and see if they find it useful.

January 15, 2018 0 comments

Online Tools and Apps

Photo Editing with Artificial Intelligence

by Lori Gracey December 8, 2017

written by Lori Gracey

Most of us these days, when trying to capture a special moment or a beautiful scene, use our cell phone cameras to take the shot. And while that’s great for portability, it may not result in the best pictures. We’re usually in a hurry (Why won’t the cat hold still while I take a picture of her doing something cute?). Add to that the fact that the more features our cell phone cameras add on, the less we actually know about how to take great photos. The result? Photos that are too dark, too bright, or just not right.

The good news for us photo amateurs is that artificial intelligence (AI) can how help improve our photos, even after they’ve been taken. AI Photos is a free website where you can upload any photo and the artificial brains will then make it better automatically; you don’t have to know anything or do anything. The tool’s creators claim that it can even “translate ordinary photos into DSLR-quality images.” (DSLR stands for Digital Lens Single Reflex and is the preferred tool of professional photographers.)

Photo Editing in Action

Below is a photo I took of one of my sons while he was in college. You can see the “before” look on the right and it’s really dark. The “after” look on the left shows how the photo appears once the AI has done its thing. Then I simply download my enhanced photo (as a JPG) and pretend I took it that way from the start. There’s no fee or registration required, which is amazing.

photo editing

The final, saved image looks like this. The AI seems to have not only lightened the background, but also sharpened my blurry image.

photo editing

Now this may not be the slickest photo editor on the planet. But, to be honest, sometimes I don’t need a lot of bells and whistles to have to pick from. Usually, I just want my photo to look good without a lot of work. AI Photos is fast and efficient and doesn’t require me to know a lot about photography. That’s what I’m looking for in any artificial intelligence, something that will save me time and make me look good!

Classroom Applications

Because the AI works automatically, this isn’t a great tool for teaching students how to take better photographs. But when you’re in the middle of a project and students need good photos fast, this is the perfect resource. Even elementary students can use it because of its simplicity. And, after all, the world needs better photos!

More Photo Editing Resources

If you want more resources on photo editing, check out these blog posts:

December 8, 2017 0 comments

making it merry title on a red background

Online Tools and Apps

Makin’ It Merry

by Peggy Reimers December 4, 2017

written by Peggy Reimers

For Meghan Trainor, it’s all about the bass, but I think it’s all about makin’ it merry with animated GIFs! My colleague Miguel Guhlin inspired me and then taught me how to create an animated GIF. Check out my second ever GIF above with the holiday theme.

I made my first animated GIF for Twitter. It showcased our wonderful presenters for the November TCEA Campus Technology Specialist Academy. I must say, I was quite jazzed at the result. I then put on my educator hat and wondered how could this be used in school. It could easily morph into a makerspace, a holiday art project, or a technology integration lesson.

Merry Animated GIF Creation Directions

Step 1

Open Google Slides
Under File >Page Settings >Pixels Set 400 x 400
Create your first slide
Choose a background color
Add your content: I drew lights and added clip art snowflakes and a text box with Happy
Duplicate your first slide
I changed the coloring of the lights and switched out the word “Happy” for “Holidays,” but used the same text box. *You do not want to change the alignment of the text.
Duplicate the second slide
For the third slide, I added a tree and snowflakes

Step 2

1. Use the Slides to Drives add-on

(Click on <Select a File) Find your Google Slide Presentation and click select

This will save the three slides as a .png. Be patient on this part. (It takes a little bit of time to make the magic work.

2. Click on the blue link to open up the folder in your Google Drive.

3.Download this file. On my Mac, it downloaded it as a zipped folder. I put it on my desktop and double-clicked on it to unzip it.

Step 3

Go to gifmaker.me
Upload your folder with your three .png files
On the left side, set your Canvas Size to 400 x 400
Set your animation speed (I used 750 for the blinking lights)
View the GIF or Download the GIF. But you don’t really need to view it because you can see it in the control panel.

Viola! There it is!

More Merry Making for the Holiday Season

Paper Snowflake Maker

Elf Yourself Special note: Fun to create, but the cost to save your song is $1.99.

Build a Snowman

Create a poster, card or photo collage with Canva

Send a Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or winter ecard

Make a Digital Breakout or try The Merry Merry Digital Breakout here.

Featured Image: Created by author

December 4, 2017 0 comments

Online Tools and Apps

For Fun and Creativity, Try a Digital Sign Generator

by Peggy Reimers November 16, 2017

written by Peggy Reimers

Digital sign generators are just plain fun. And with a little creativity, you can turn these little oddball web tools into something useful. I know what you’re thinking: that is a pretty big stretch. But so untrue! Without much effort, you can easily spice up the following with a self-made title or inscription:

Presentation slides
HyperDocs
Student or staff congratulations
Name tags
Bulletin boards
Blogs and websites
Online courses
Book reports
Newsletters
Green screen backgrounds or props
Story starters
Puzzles for a Breakout EDU or digital breakout game

Digital Sign Generators

Here are a few fun resources for digital sign generators to get you started:

Inspired by the Netflix series, Stranger Things, Nelson Cash created a Strangify Title Generator
http://makeitstranger.com/

Einstein Writing on the Blackboard

http://www.hetemeel.com/einsteinform.php

Custom Medal Maker and Road Sign
Bronze Colored Medal
Blue Road Sign

Make an Eye Chart
http://www.eyechartmaker.com/index.php

Two websites for designing your own “Breaking News!”
http://www.classtools.net/breakingnews/

http://breakyourownnews.com/

Geo-Greeting is a fun use of Google Earth’s 3D satellite imagery. Go ahead, create a message with letter-shaped buildings.

http://www.geogreeting.com

Sign Generators with Multiple Options

Atom Smasher Sign Maker has 12 signs that you can make. Caution, the Las Vegas Strip sign is probably not age-appropriate for students. My favorite three from this website include:

Highway Sign Generator

Road Construction Sign Generator

Bar-B-Q Sign Generator

Wigflip has a dozen different designs. My favorites here are the speech bubbles, motivational poster, green street signs, and the sticky notes.

Addletters has Harry Potter, Disneyland, and the Wrigley Field Marquee generators. Caution! When I checked out this site, inappropriate ads were visible.

With Image Chef, you have 45 options for creating digital signs.

Classic choices available at RedKid.You can’t help but love Scooby Doo, Pink Panther, and the iPod Billboards of yesteryear. One more caution age advisory caution: on this site, you can make a sign with an Absolut vodka bottle.

If you are looking to go old school, try WORD Art from Microsoft Windows 95. In its day, Word Art jazzed up millions of book reports, logos, and presentations.

Tombstone Generators

http://tombgen.appspot.com/
http://www.tombstonebuilder.com/
http://www.oregontrailtombstone.com/

The gravestone generators just might be one of my favorites. For educational purposes, I would use one of these tools to create:

Background for a Halloween haiku
An epitaph for a famous person, author, or historical figure.
A summary of a character’s features for a book report
Overused (dead words) that a class doesn’t use anymore …such as sad, happy, run, eat, etc.

Please share your creativity and let us know in the comment section how you and your students use digital sign generators to jazz up your projects!

November 16, 2017 0 comments

Online Tools and Apps Technical Support

Communication Apps Districts Can’t Live Without

by Miguel Guhlin October 20, 2017

written by Miguel Guhlin

Are you the go-to person for getting the word out to others on your campus or district? Let’s consider that you may be responsible if you have any of the following roles: district technology director or coordinator, human resources director, superintendent, assistant superintendent, principal, or classroom teacher. Yes, that’s right. Almost everyone is responsible for ensuring positive, engaging communications with parents and community. In this blog entry, we’ll explore some services and communication apps that make it easy to get the word out.

“Our district app is attached to our website. The admin office is the one who updates the website and app, and I get alerts when needed announcements are made through the app. We have a district Twitter and Facebook for official communication to the community.”

App #1 – Mobile App for Parents

Looking for a mobile app that parents and students can load on their smartphones to keep up to date? Several school districts rely on a large company to create their app. These school apps provide a wealth of information, including school news (which could be an RSS feed from your organization blog or content management system) and important notifications (e.g. hurricane alerts). School communications apps make it easy for parents to access grades, cafeteria menus, and campus event schedules. Let’s take a quick look at two well-known app providers.

Blackboard is one such school app provider. For those relying on Blackboard for services, a mobile school app may be available from Blackboard at an additional cost. From their website:

A beautiful mobile app can help bring your community together with the latest news, schedules, and school information personalized for every parent. The Blackboard Mobile Communications App, formally ParentLink, integrates with all the school tools you need—from websites, social media, and mass notifications—for a more streamlined communication experience.

Schoolway serves as cost effective alternative. From their website:

Unlike open forums like texting, Facebook or Twitter, SchoolWay gives your school the best way yet to inform and alert your school community with the content of your choice. From everyday information to important alerts, SchoolWay has you covered, safely and securely. Schools control the content, parents choose the content they wish to receive. From classwork updates to sports scheduling, lunch menus, scores and event updates, SchoolWay delivers…Your teachers, coaches, clubs and administrators can manage their own content independently. Then, parents and students can choose the content they want to receive. The app is also customized with the colors and logos of the schools in your district.

Schoolway is available at no charge if the district has a Jostens’ yearbook contract. If not, an individual school can expect to pay approximately $500. School districts may pay $1500 (these are ballpark figures).

“For parents/students, we have been using Twitter, Remind 101, and Facebook. For teacher/admin communication, we have been using GroupMe.”

Other school mobile apps that provide parent access include School Messenger, CampusSuite, and Como (formerly Conduit Mobile featured in Judson ISD’s initial effort) .

Responsive Web Design Lowers Cost of School App Adoption

A low-cost alternative to purchase of a school mobile app involves using responsive web design. It is an approach defined in this way:

Responsive web design (RWD) is an approach to web design which makes web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes. (Source: Wikipedia)

It’s not an app, but rather a mobile-friendly website. Twitter Lite, for example, isn’t an app. It was designed to provide access to twitter on mobile devices that lack an app store, are in low bandwidth situations, and require fast loading content. Going “lite” on for school mobile can save you money.

In terms of what’s easy to use to create a lite site, take a look at the “New Google Sites.” You can embed RSS feeds for updates from blogs or content management systems (a.k.a. website tools like Blackboard, edlio, etc).

App #2 – Remind

Appropriate for classrooms, campuses, and group communications, Remind.com offers a simple solution. Used in seventy percent of U.S. schools, Remind has become synonymous with school communications. Teachers and principals rely on Remind because it makes sharing information easy and safe. Although teachers can start out with a free account, school plans are available. With safety in mind, Remind earned the iKeepSafe COPPA Safe Harbor Seal.

I appreciate the short Remind texts about a lesson that was taught so that I can initiate a conversation about a specific moment from the school day. They’ve helped to change the conversation with my child at home from ‘Eh, my day was fine’ to one where they share details—and at times, excitement—about what they learned. – Gwen Pescatore, mom of three and PTO president, PA

Remind is remarkably easy to set up for communications. In fact, every day, I receive an update via Remind keeping me up to date.

App #3 – Class Dojo

Another favorite for the classroom, Class Dojo has gained a following. Designed primarily for elementary students, it facilitates monitoring of student behavior throughout the school day and week. More importantly, parents can see how their child is behaving through the app as well. Many educators and parents love Class Dojo. It is a great tool to help students monitor their behavior throughout the day/week. Make sure to get approval for use of this tool from your school district first, however.

App #4 – Miscellaneous Communication Apps

There are a variety of apps available to facilitate communications among team members. These include free walkie-talkie apps like Voxer and Zello and group messaging apps like GroupMe and Telegram. Each has its own strengths. For example, if you need to be able to rely on passworded groups with text and audio options, Voxer, Zello, and Telegram will meet your needs. Zello’s benefit is that it doesn’t require users to share their mobile phone number with others. All apps listed work via the web, as well as on your mobile device of choice.

Having used all of these, my current favorite is Zello, a favorite for many others as well. If it worked for them, it should work for you.

Create Your Unified Communications Plan

While Twitter hashtags can unify a campus, and a school district Facebook page is a requirement today, these three apps can facilitate communication in an academic setting. Whether you are using an industrial strength mobile app or relying on a coordinated text messaging app like Remind, parent communication has never been easier. Develop a social media plan that relies on simple tools to get information to the people who most need it.

Note: This post was updated on February 28, 2018 to include additional school mobile apps.

October 20, 2017 1 comment

Educational Trends Good Teaching Online Tools and Apps

Five Reasons Why Explainer Videos Help Teach Generation Z

by Guest Blogger September 14, 2017

written by Guest Blogger

As Generation Z will be highly responsible for shaping our future, along with other young generations, teachers need to aid and support their social and academic development. From what we know about Gen Z, they are quite different compared to previous generations. Therefore, we must think of tools to fill the spots available for content reception to benefit both teachers and students.

Videos are no newcomer when it comes to supporting lectures; however explainer videos in general have exponential benefits that will support content retention. Five specific benefits include catering to the short attention span of the average Gen Z student through concise videos, offering ease of accessibility and mobility, providing visual learning opportunities, offering increased simplicity, and easily providing a variety of information and a simple way to update content.

This video has been created with mysimpleshow.

1. Simple videos for short attention spans.

A student’s attention span might, excessively speaking, decrease as I am writing this. After all, the average attention span of a Generation Z individual is about 8 seconds. Massive amounts of information expressed in long texts is outdated. What explainer videos offer is a condensed version of a lot of information. It’s the main message, the key points, or the announcement of something in a simple and video-based way. Thus, we combine the different needs of Gen Z with short, image-heavy, snackable information. Explainer videos ideally are around one to three minutes in length, with two minutes as the sweet spot, meaning high engagement.

2. Mobility and accessibility

Thanks to fluency across five screens, explainer videos allow viewers to access the videos anytime and anywhere. This enables students and teachers to free themselves of these “hunger slots” during the day when no information will reach them. Thanks to the accessibility, explainer videos can be assigned as homework or played throughout the school day according to teachers’ and students’ assessment. Thanks to technology, you can bring the screen to any setting required, taking the classroom anywhere you like across the globe. This supports the preference of an independent working environment.

3. Visual learning

Adobe has conducted research that indicates that more than 50 percent of students and teachers assess “watching” as the most effective learning source, followed by online research. Explainer videos combine both of these factors, as videos are watched and simultaneously searched online, and search results likely contain additional valuable information. Extra bonuses are the audio aspect for aural learning, as well as possible subtitle options that assist in improving reading skills.

4. Simple messages

In addition to accessible, shortened information nuggets, let’s talk about simplicity. As Gen Z students process information faster, they require understandable information bits so the content remains memorable. Explainer videos pick up on the concept of apps using images, keywords, attractive design layouts, user friendly interfaces, and simple sentence structures. This further leaves space for creativity when considering students and teachers creating their own videos.

5. Variety of information and ease of updating content

Explainer videos are not bound to a subject – the possibilities are endless! A teacher likely doesn’t have time to write an entire textbook, but can create or search for suitable explainer videos, reducing working time immensely while simultaneously ensuring students a deeper understanding of the content. Another great benefit here? Updated information. Not only is most content in the videos rather recent, but it is often easier to adjust, revise, and update information in comparison to textbook updates, as video creation tools are online and thus accessible 24 hours of the day, seven days a week.

Generation Z has the future among them, and it’s time teachers support these students through technology – explainer videos to be exact!

This is a guest blog by Finja Kruse. Kruse is a teacher who has worked with children of different ages. She also writes blogs and creates videos for simpleshow video maker. She has experience with different educational tools and is engaged in creative writing activities in school. You can contact her via LinkedIn.

September 14, 2017 0 comments

Educational Trends Online Tools and Apps Professional Learning

Four Great Twitter Walls to Use

by Dr. Bruce Ellis August 18, 2017

written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

Do you have an event coming up and would like to encourage tweeting during the event? Then you may want to consider using a Twitter wall. A Twitter wall displays a specified hashtag, list, or user account and updates every few seconds. Many events that make use of a Twitter wall will use a projector to have it displayed in a prominent place so their attendees can see the action…and hopefully participate by sharing their learning via Twitter.

Though Twitter walls can be pricey, here are four that I found that are either free or offer a free version that is well done.

The Wallrus

This has to be the easiest Twitter wall to set up. You have multiple themes available, can upload your logo, and identify one Twitter keyword, username, or Instagram keyword on the free version. There are four layouts (text, text and images, images, and instructions) which you can use in any combination or use all four (my preference) set on timers.

Activity Walls

Though not quite as extensive as The Wallrus, Activity Walls does do a nice job of showing the most recent tweets. Just identify your hashtag, set the colors (which can be a little quirky, depending on what browser you are using), and your wall is instantly created. Using Chrome, I can quickly jump to full screen for a nice projected view; using Internet Explorer, I can customize the accent, background, and text colors.

Tweet Monsters

Tweet Monsters is simple and focused. The free account is for personal use; you’ll need to contact them for pricing on corporate and other uses. Begin by identifying your hashtag. Customize text and background colors as well as the font, transition type, and transition speed. If needed, you can use the custom word filter to identify words to be filtered out and to either not show the tweet or substitute the bad word with an *. The downside of Tweet Monsters is that you only see one tweet at a time.

Twitter Fall

This Twitter wall has the most options available without a cost. You can add lists, searches, tweets by geolocation, exclude specific hashtags or words, and color code your timeline, mentions, and direct messages if needed. You do have a variety of setting to change regarding the speed, fall size, language, font size, and whether or not to show retweets. When finished tweaking your wall, you will want to click on the Presentation Mode link for easier viewing for your attendees. Though not the most professional looking wall, it does give the most flexibility. And, when I’m in a Twitter chat, I use this wall to follow the exchange and participate.

Twitter Wall Tips

When using a Twitter wall, be sure to consider these tips to make sure that it works the way you intend and that you get the most out of it with your attendees.

Investigate and choose your hashtag carefully. Be sure that the hashtag you are using isn’t conflicting with other users’ use of the hashtag, which may be completely different (and inappropriate) than your intentions.
Share your hashtag with your users well in advance and start “priming the pump” with tweets about your event.
Ask your attendees to tweet out their learning, great ideas, quotes, etc. using the hashtag during the event. Encourage non-tweeters to move from lurking to retweeting.
Tweet with images and photos to increase the engagement and the likelihood it will be shared with others.

Now that you have a few Twitter walls to choose from and some tips to get you started, we’d love to see what you do with them. Share the link to your Twitter wall in the comments below.

August 18, 2017 0 comments

Math Online Tools and Apps

Desmos Adds Geometry Tool

by Lori Gracey June 2, 2017

written by Lori Gracey

Desmos has long been a popular name in the world of math educators. Their free, online graphing calculator is simply beautiful, and since it’s easy and works on any device, it’s perfect for the classroom. They even have a a free Android or iOS app for it, along with excellent classroom activities.

But now they’ve released a new tool specifically for geometry, and it’s just as amazing. Although not as fully featured as a website like Geogebra, Desmos Geometry is still a great resource for the secondary math classroom. It’s designed to help students understand geometry concepts through the use of drawing and diagram manipulation tools. There’s a simple tutorial video, along with a page of resources to help master the tool. And clicking the “three lines” icon in the top left-hand corner of the program will provide a number of powerful examples.

Because Desmos is so universally liked and adopted by schools around the world, there will soon be a variety of lesson plans and activities designed by teachers that go along with this new resource. That makes it an even more powerful tool.

While I am not a math expert, I still had fun playing with Desmos Geometry. And I think that, if someone more knowledgeable were there to help me, I could really learn a lot about the subject while experimenting. The tool enables students to construct and test their own theories about geometry, which is a powerful and engaging way to learn. And that’s what technology is best at, isn’t it?

June 2, 2017 0 comments

Educational Trends Good Teaching Online Tools and Apps

Achieving Connected Classrooms and Resources to Break Down the Walls

by Guest Blogger May 31, 2017

written by Guest Blogger

Creating more connected classrooms can start with a single moment of witnessing how powerful the effect can be on students. A couple of years back, I had one of those beautiful, life-changing moments in my classroom that ended up shaping the way I approached education from then on. I’d like to share that story with you, give you some incredible resources, and hopefully inspire you to break down the walls in your classroom and connect your learners to various perspectives in our amazing, diverse world.

Junk Funk Meets Greatness

On May 13, 2015 the Laurens-Marathon Band performed a piece entitled “Junk Funk” at their spring concert in their small community gymnasium. The concert went off without a hitch. Lots of great music was performed. the audience was in fine form, and everyone left with a smile on their face and music in their hearts. The following Monday morning, the band director (that’s me!) opened her email to find a message from Kevin Mixon (the composer of “Junk Funk” who lives in New York). He had come across the band’s performance video that I’d uploaded on YouTube. Mr. Mixon simply wanted to give them a shout out:

School bands learns the power of connected classrooms

The Laurens-Marathon Band

“I came across the video of your recent performance of “Junk Funk” and wanted you to know that I was honored you selected the piece for your concert. I hope it helped advance your playing skills, but most importantly, I hope you and your audience had fun with it! I was impressed that all the grades worked together and prepared the music in a very short amount of time – evidence of your achievement as musicians! And can you thank Ms. Allen for being an awesome teacher? Please keep playing your instruments; you have achieved much so far and you have many more great performances ahead. I am now a big fan of the Laurens-Marathon Bands!”

Ok, personally and selfishly, I was ecstatic – who doesn’t like to hear an attaboy everyone once in a while? But really, as an educator and someone that had taught some of these kids for eight years, I was also so pumped that my kiddos were recognized for their hard work and couldn’t share it with them fast enough. When I read the message to my students was when the moment happened. Transforming.

As soon as I read the email, I watched the physical reaction across their faces. Their adolescent eyes popped, their shoulders straightened up a bit, and the room started to buzz with excitement. My students just had their moment of realizing they had reached an audience larger than their parents, and that this new audience dug what they had played. These kids, some of whom have never left the great state of Iowa, influenced someone in New York. Someone that was “big time.” I witnessed their enjoyment and vowed that my teaching from that moment on would strive to replicate that magic. I would break down the walls to my classrooms to connect and collaborate with others from all walks of life and perspectives. I would expand my learner’s minds and expose them to places and spaces they might not have access to normally. There was no going back.

Since this time, I have found and leveraged some wonderful technological spaces, resources, and tools to help continue to engage and amaze my students with how far their voices can travel. As promised, I’ve included them below with linked examples to get your brain muscles warmed up. Happy perusing and planning!

Social Media

Your students are probably already well versed in social media in their personal lives, but you can use these same tools to create a connected classroom and get their words and ideas beyond the classroom walls. I’ve included some helpful links for how these tools can be used by educators:

The Why and How of Using Facebook in the Classroom
50 Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom
8 Ways to Integrate Instagram into the Classroom
15 Ways to Use Snapchat in Classes and Schools

Blogging and Reflection

Allowing students to reflect on their learning in their own words and to publish their ideas for an audience can provide a powerful sense of pride and ownership in their work. Here are a few tools to help them showcase their work and writing.

Seesaw provides a platform where students can share their work with parents, teachers, and principals.
50 Things You Can Do with Google Classroom
The Top Ten Ways Blogs and WordPress Are Used in Schools

Audio and Visual

Another way to bring students voices beyond the classroom is through audio tools like Soundtrap which help students create and publish their own music and podcasts. Learn ways that this tool can help students engage, learn, and socialize here.

Students can also use WeVideo to capture, create, and share videos with people outside the classroom. They can demonstrate their creativity and abilities beyond the classroom walls. This blog shares ways to engage students using WeVideo.

My Requirements for Connective Resources

Most of these spaces/resources are not super new, but they have withstood the test of time and are Meredith-approved. What is my test? I ask myself the following questions:

Can students create? From scratch? From a starting-point template? (I want both.)
Is there an option to be reflective?
Is it collaborative and, if so, can it support cross-school (state, country) collaborations?
Will kids have easy access in school and out of school (for continued creation, passion projects, etc)?
Is it device agnostic?
Do I have the ability to monitor and provide easy feedback?

These are some of the criteria that I consider that have helped me find tools that work for my connected classroom. Do you have any great tools you want to add? If so, share them in the comments.

This is a guest blog by Meredith Allen (@msmeredithallen). Meredith is an educator and an international presenter. She currently works as an Instructional Technology Consultant and Educational Ambassador for Soundtrap. She taught instrumental music, K-7 technology, and virtual reality at a rural school in Iowa. Meredith has a Master’s of Science in Technology for Education and Training.

May 31, 2017 0 comments

Online Tools and Apps

Generation Z Is Here; Are You Ready?

by Lori Gracey May 29, 2017

written by Lori Gracey

You may be getting tired of all of the “generational” talk that’s been prevalent for the past 20 years. And that’s understandable, especially since it generalizes groups of people. But there’s a lot of research that shows that individuals in a particular generation do have some of the same traits and characteristics, based to a large extent on what was happening around and to them while they were growing up. That is true of the latest generation, Gen Z, too.

Who Are Gen Z?

Generation Z are the students that are currently in our schools and universities. Born from the mid 1990’s through today, this latest generation is markedly different from those we’ve seen before. That’s not surprising, since they were born and raised in the internet, connected, device-happy world. Here are a few key characteristics about your current students:

There are two billion individuals in this generation, making them the largest ever.
They process information faster than other generations, thanks to apps like Snapchat and Vine.
They live in a world of continuously updated information, which makes them dislike textbooks as out of date.
Gen Z can quickly and efficiently shift between work and play, with multiple distractions going on in the background and working on multiple tasks at once.
They desire more independent work environments, and 72 percent say they want to start their own business some day.
They are fluent across five screens (TV, mobile phone, laptop computer, tablet, and desktop computer).
Gen Z students want “snackable” content, short and image-filled. They don’t like a deluge of words.

How Can We Best Help Generation Z Students Learn?

It’s the last factoid about our students that is perhaps the most important at this time. And it directly impacts how we teach them every day. Generation Z will not, as a general rule, sit and read a chapter in their textbook and answer the questions at the end of the chapter. They are not adverse to hard work or difficult thinking, but they want the content given to them in short, easy-to-understand bursts. And that doesn’t mean watching a teacher-created PowerPoint.

Instead, try having the students take the content and create their own versions of it, using a tool like Adobe Spark. Spark allows students to create social graphics, web stories, and animated videos quickly and beautifully. A log in with either Facebook, Google, Adobe ID, or email is required. You can see an example of a social graphic here and an excellent web story about wolves here. Using Spark lets students have voice and choice, two important requirements for Generation Z learning. And the provided free templates help to ensure that they spend their time on the content and not on deciding what color background to use.

Adobe Spark can be used on the web, in the Chrome browser, or with the Android (beta version coming soon) or iOS app, all of which are free. Try it with your students today and see what amazing stories Generation Z has to tell.

May 29, 2017 0 comments

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