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More Tips, Tricks, and Tech Tidbits

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

I’m back with another collection of odds and ends ideas that relate to technology. There’s one “oldie goldie” in this group, along with some new resources, tips, and tricks. Enjoy!

Teens, Tech, and Mental Health

A recent study of more than 430,000 10 to 15-year-olds from Oxford has found that there is no link between technology use and mental-health problems, including feelings of depression and suicidal tendencies. This contradicts a January 2021 study that stated that heavy social-media use was linked to negative well-being and self-esteem among teenagers. However, isolation during the pandemic has contributed to teens feeling more alone than ever before, something schools will need to address this fall as they return.

An Oldie Is Back!

Some of you may be old enough to remember the technology mainstay program in schools starting in 1984, Print Shop. If you were like me, you had not only the original desktop publishing program, but all of the accompanying clip art CDs and spent a lot of time happily creating and printing out banners, signs, certificates, and art work for bulletin boards. Well, try to stay calm, but the fabulous program is back and available free in your browser! Fans have recreated the Apple II version with some of its accompanying clip art. Your creations will appear as a PDF that can be saved and printed. Please note that the program is slow to load (as it was in 1984!), so be patient. Share this with your students to let them know how far the technology has come.

tips and tricks

Learn Anything

If you’d like the opportunity to become better at something you are interested in, be sure to check out Learn Anything. This website offers more than 50,000 free video guides called “jump ropes” from “knowledgeable and passionate creators” on a wide variety of topics. These step-by-step guides allow you to move at your own pace in the learning. And you can upload our own videos for others to peruse. It’s also available as a free app on Android and iOS.

I was interested in the “How to Draw a Hungry Caterpillar” jump rope. The learning was divided into six short segments that were clear and easy to understand. What do you want to learn today?

Search and Read Old Newspapers

Studying a primary source like a newspaper published at the time of a major event in history is a great tool for student learning. And the US News Map can help. With access via a strong search engine to more than 15 million newspaper pages published between 1789 and 1964, this is a treasure trove of information. You can search by topics (like slavery or statehood) or by year. Once you hit return, your search results show up as dots on a US map, allowing you to click into the ones you might be interested in. As you drill down, the newspaper pages are in PDF format and appear just as they did when they were published. Your search term is highlighted in pink.

This site does take a little bit to learn how to find exactly what you are looking for. I would encourage you to do a sample search first as a demonstration for your students and then have them work in small groups. A good first activity for them would be to simply all look at the same page from the same newspaper on the same day and year and note the interesting things they see there.

Hyperdocs Galore

If you love using interactive hyperdocs with your students for greater engagement and content mastery, then you must check out this HUGE collection. The Peterson website has hundreds, if not thousands, of hyperdocs ready for you to make a copy of and start using. If you go to the link above, you can see all of them listed in a very, very, VERY long list. But you can also access them by subject area in the categories across the top of the page (and then down the right-hand side). And you’ll find the CTRL-F shortcut very useful for searching for your topic on the page.

Better Than Blooms

The amazing educational expert Grant Wiggins offers this thought-provoking matrix to ensure that you are designing lessons that reach the highest levels of learning. He is not a fan of Bloom’s Taxonomy of action verbs as a method for teaching to the highest levels, but instead states that a more complex approach is required. (By the way, if you find this information from him interesting, take a look at his article on cognitive load theory, which he believed is the most important things for a teacher to know.)

tips and tricks

Take a Break

NPR has published their Joy Generator, a website that entices us to take a moment away from our stress-filled day and tap into more positive emotions. “Small doses of daily delight can shift our focus away from our worries and give more opportunity for joy to arise. You can read more about the science here.” A random video of joy-producing images appears each time you click on the “Click for Joy” button.

Airport Delays

The power of data is amazing. If you are tasked with picking up someone from the airport, you may find this collection handy. The Live Airport Delays Dashboard shows current delays in both arrivals and departures at every airport in the United States. And yes, it’s all live data. Because of everything that is included, again, you will need to spend a little time learning how to manipulate the system. But it’s well worth it! This is also a great project to show students on how data can be structured to provide greater meaning.

tips and tricks

Engaging ELA Activities with Google Docs

Eric Curts is back with some more tremendous resources, this time for ELA teachers in all grades. He offers six different activities using Google Docs that your students will love and that will help them become better readers and writers. These include activities involving highlighting, emojis, choose your own adventure stories, graphic organizers, and more. What makes these even more amazing is that he includes every possible resource for each of the lessons, meaning less work for you!

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Asian/Pacific American
Content Areas

Celebrate Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, a time dedicated to reflecting on the history and contributions of Americans of Asian and Pacific Islander (AAPI) backgrounds. A joint project of a number of federal agencies, it can be a great starting point for discussing the realities of life in America for this broad category of Americans.

Accordingly, there are lots of resources and teaching materials that can help teachers create representation for AAPI students and connect this shared history not only to social studies topics, but also to all topic areas and grade levels by investigating the role AAPI citizens have played across many fields.

Learn more about this month, and discover resources to help you bring AAPI heritage topics into your classroom in this post.

Understanding AAPI Heritage

Official Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month celebrations are organized by a bevy of national agencies: the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

You can find many resources chosen specifically for teachers from all the participating agencies here.

As you can see, the understanding of AAPI life crosses many topics, including civics, art and literature, science, and more. That’s a lot of subjects, meaning you and your learners are likely to find something to spark interest and engagement. In addition the category itself, according to the month’s official website, includes many nationalities, ethnicities, religions, and more — from the Middle East to the islands of the Pacific Ocean. 

Tools for the Classroom

A number of educators and organizations have collected activities, A/V resources, and more to help you bring the celebration into your classroom. 

  • TeacherVision’s Asian-American and Pacific Heritage Month Resources page includes links to printables, art-based activities, reading and literature resources, and ways to combine and connect AAPI history with reading. 
  • Studies Weekly has developed a Teacher’s Guide to Celebrating Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which covers the history and purpose of the month, as well as suggestions for fun films to watch, reading ideas, virtual (and in-person) museum visits, and even fun language activities that share various AAPI languages. 
  • The National Education Association shares an extensive collection of activities, full lesson plans, teaching guides, and more, all organized by grade level and covering a wide array of topics, from the internment of Japanese Americans to Indigenous Australian art and music.

Asian/Pacific American Reading Resources

The stories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders throughout American history can be a great way to both bolster reading and literacy skills while also growing students’ awareness of their own cultures, and others. 

  • In her blog Imagination Soup, former educator Melissa Taylor includes 60(!) children’s books representing the AAPI experience. She notes that reading and discussing these works can help build social-emotional skills, which she calls “tools for inclusivity, education, and empathy building.”
  • Southern California PBS shares 12 children’s books your students might enjoy, including links to an author interview.
  • Reading Rockets has categorized tons of children’s books. Check out their full selection of books on AAPI topics here.

Recognizing America’s Diverse Cultures

Educators looking to include similar topics in the classroom for the many groups that call the U.S. home can explore even more resources from these TechNotes posts.

Photo via Library of Congress.

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dickens
Content Areas

How Charles Dickens Saw America

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

On January 22, 1842, famed British author Charles Dickens, whose stories of life in Victorian England continue to capture the imagination of readers worldwide, arrived in Boston, Massachusetts. He was greeted like a celebrity, as he would be again on a return visit in 1867. Today, students still read Dickens’ tales for insight not only into literature, but also the history of England and the Industrial Revolution.

Editor’s note: Random-Access Memories is a periodic series highlighting the ways in which major historical events have influenced and can be explored through ed tech. Got an idea for a future edition of R-AM? Drop us a line.

As the world continues to move toward a new industrial revolution, it’s worthwhile to consider the first. There may be no better way to understand the commercial and technological changes of the 19th century— and the potential changes of the 21st — than to look to the life and times of a certain author whose name is well known to students across the U.S. and around the world.

Charles Dickens, author of such required reading as Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities, and classics such as A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist, arrived in America on January 22, 1842. He disembarked the steamship Brittania in Boston, itself a bustling, industrializing port, to great fanfare, at least to those who knew of his visit.

On the anniversary of his arrival, we’ve collected a number of digital resources to help educators and students explore Dickens’ life and works, and the lessons we can take from his writing, and his experiences. Dickens, whose writing helped create the image of Victorian England, can offer insight into both his time and ours.

The Best of Times

To this day, Dickens remains remarkably popular. Look no further than Dickensian, a 2015 BBC series that mashes up many of the author’s most beloved characters in one shared story. Unlike some enduring artists, Dickens was also quite famous in his own time, with ten percent of literate Britons reading his work when it was new, often aloud to others. Upon his arrival in Boston, famed American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson was struck by his energy and workmanlike pace.

[Dickens possess] too much talent for his genius; it is a fearful locomotive to which he is bound and can never be free from it nor set to rest. . . . He daunts me! I have not the key.

Ralph Waldo Emerson. Source: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/dickensbio4.html

On this first visit (he would return in 1867, as we’ll see shortly), Dickens took a shine to Boston. While the beloved young literary lion tried to keep his visit relatively quiet — a private tour of New England, then other regions of the young U.S., was the idea — he was feted by the luminaries of Massachusetts society, all of whom were eager to meet the immensely popular writer, arguably the “world’s first true modern celebrity.”

Among those eager young men of the professional classes who received him in Boston were Harvard Professor Cornelius Felton, anti-slavery activist and Anglophile Richard Henry Dana (author of the 1840 best-seller Ten Years Before the Mast), William Prescott, Daniel Webster, Harvard Professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Dickens’s near contemporary, prominent lawyer Charles Sumner, who became the Dickenses’ host in the mad round of Beacon Hill drawing room receptions.

Source: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/boston.html

But while the bright young author was much liked on the shores of America, his purpose, to fight for international copyright protections, was an unpopular one in the U.S., where his books were being pirated. What Dickens got out of the trip, however, beyond raising his literary star, was the basis of a new book.

The Worst of Times

In October 1842, after his tour from Boston out across the U.S., Dickens published American Notes, a travelogue and foreigner’s view of America, a text not unlike French diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, which was published seven years prior.

The book caused a scandal. While Dickens had been charmed by Boston, a city that looked to him like a picturesque theater set, his recoiled at the injustices he saw in America, just as he wrote of the plight of the poor and dispossessed in England. 

While American Notes was a multifaceted work, Dickens exposure to cruel conditions in factories of the North and plantations of the South led him to note in his personal correspondence that “[America] is not the republic I came to see; this is not the republic of my imagination.”

In American Notes … he wrote scathingly about the institution of slavery, citing newspaper accounts of runaway slaves horribly disfigured by their cruel masters. From Richmond Dickens returned to Washington and started a trek westward to St. Louis. Traveling by riverboat and stagecoach the Dickens entourage … endured quite an adventure. Gaining anonymity and more personal freedom the further west they went, Dickens’ power of observation provides a very entertaining and enlightening view of early America.

Source: https://www.charlesdickenspage.com/charles-dickens-in-america.html

Dickens’ following book, Martin Chuzzlewit, continued the criticisms of America’s young republic, one teetering toward a civil war. While both books proved unpopular in the U.S., Dickens’ remarkable output and enjoyable style meant his popularity rose again in the coming years.

In 1867, after the Civil War, Dickens returned to the States, this time on a wildly popular public reading tour. By the end of the Civil War, Americans were again ready to welcome the wordsmith of London.

What the Dickens!

Explore primary sources, quotes, reflections, images, and audio/video for understanding Dickens with these digital resources.

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national novel writing month
Uncategorized

What Is NaNoWriMo?

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

Creative writing can be a challenge. Faced with a blank sheet of paper, a blinking cursor, or a stack of ideas, we might balk. This feeling is the dread specter of writer’s block — a feeling that, no matter how prepared to write about something we may be, putting words to the page in the right order (and in the right amount) can be paralyzing, even for seasoned writers.

Archers often experience what’s called “target panic,” where their body and mind lock up when the archer aims for the target. Golfers get the “yips,” a sudden inability to carry out the fine motor skills required for the sport, especially when putting. Aviators, motorcyclists, and race car drivers sometimes fall victim to “target fixation” — becoming so focused on a target that they increase their likelihood of unintentionally colliding with it.

Unblocking the Writer

Over the years, many solutions and aids have been developed for creative block. Mind mapping, discussion, journaling, and more have proven effective. And sometimes, forcing oneself to put something on the page, no matter how unrefined, can help.

A writer friend of mine recently offered me advice on starting a draft: Just write it. Write it all down, and when you’re done, you can edit what you have into something closer to your goal. Sometimes, the best way to write is to simply do it.

That’s the idea behind National Novel Writing Month, known colloquially as “NaNoWriMo” (naa-no-rye-mo). Started in 1999, it’s an event and a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people create their first book, novel, or other creative writing endeavor. To do so, participants agree to do their best to write 50,000 words — a novel’s worth — during the month of November.

It’s a tall order, and many don’t succeed, but that’s not entirely the point. Regular writing can help prompt students to explore writing in new ways, write about topics they care about, or simply learn what it takes to explain their ideas in writing.

Inspiring Young Writers during National Novel Writing Month

To help teachers and students engage in the month-long writing binge, NaNoWriMo has developed the Young Writer Program, designed to inspire young people to write under the theme “Your Story Matters.” Educators can check out the FAQs about the program here, learn more details on the Getting Started page, and walk through the sign-up process here. 

Educators should also check out The NaNoWriMo Classroom, an online resource made specifically to get students involved in the month. The NaNoWriMo Classroom offers daily agendas to help build young novelists, as well as thoughtful questions to consider, FAQs, and tech tips to help you keep the writing process going. 

I have never in my life tried to do something so daring and adventurous. I am a pretty daring person, but I do not think I would try to write a novel on my own without any support or encouragement. So thank you.

— Julia, 13 http://www.nanoteacher.org/student-testimonials.html

Have you ever taken part in NaNoWriMo? Are you trying it this year? Let us know in the comments!

More Creative Writing Resources from TCEA

Photo by Stas Knop from Pexels

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comic sans
Content AreasSpecial Needs

What You Might Not Know About Comic Sans

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

Comic Sans is a controversial typeface. You may recognize the hand drawn-looking letters, perhaps you’ve even used them. In fact, the font is commonly used by teachers. But it’s also been lambasted, mocked, and outright hated. So what makes this common font so interesting — and what might you not know about these buzzed-about bubble letters?

A Font of Creativity

Comic Sans was designed by Vincent Connare in 1994 while he was a typographic engineer at Microsoft. The font was packaged with Microsoft programs and operating systems. Connare felt the typeface used in developing the early Microsoft Bob system, Times New Roman, was a little too boring, and wanted something friendlier, making the user interface more approachable to students and people not used to working on computers.

Connare was a fan of the graphic novel, and was inspired by the speech bubbles to create something simple and rounded, letters that might have been created by cutting with blunt scissors (the truth is he used a popular font-making software package).

“What’s so wrong with Comic Sans?” BBC

Though it didn’t fit into the grids of early Microsoft systems, it eventually found its way into Microsoft Movie Maker and Windows 95. From there, its popularity — and infamy — grew.

Comic Sans

Comics Sans in Education and Beyond

From the beginning, Comic Sans, inspired by comic books, was designed to be used for children. “My original idea was it was going to be used for kids. It wasn’t made for everybody to like it,” Connare told LiveScience in 2019.

Connare himself believes the typeface was quickly adopted in the 1990s because people were, for the first time, able to pick what their documents looked like, and gravitated to fun and unique fonts, as they “were picking crazy things because they could do anything.” Teachers began using computers and printouts heavily in the 1990s, and it’s little surprise that educators, armed with new PCs that allowed them to make their own handouts, chose to use the playful, childlike look of Comic Sans.

When people ask him at dinner parties what he does, he tells them he designs type. ‘You might have heard of Comic Sans,’ he suggests. And everybody says yes.

“What’s so wrong with Comic Sans?” BBC

But popularity often comes with a backlash. Perceived as a silly or unserious font, its ubiquity quickly became the source of ridicule, especially when used in somber circumstances like memorials and letters.

Defenders have come to the font’s aid over the years, even launching a “Comic Sans Day” on the first Friday of July. In 2017, Connare summed up the polarizing effect of the font, one he admitted to The Guardian that he’s only used once.

“The basic theory is that typography should not shout — but Comic Sans shouts,” he said.

Potential Hidden Benefits

While Comic Sans is an obvious choice for young learners, recent arguments suggest that it might also have hidden benefits. The wide-set, uniquely-shaped letters may assist dyslexic people in reading. According to the British Dyslexia Association, “sans serif fonts, such as Arial and Comic Sans,” are best for dyslexic workers. In 2016, AIGA, an association of designers, claimed that Comic Sans “might just be the best font for people with dyslexia.”

Further, Comic Sans may be useful for the youngest learners, as it’s one of few fonts that style the lowercase letter “a” in the manner that most people write it.

The evidence of Comic Sans effectiveness, however, is scant, mostly because very little research has been done, and what has been done may depend on the expertise or research focus of the researcher (think design expert versus a language expert). In 2018, Jon Severs, editor for the educational company Tes put it this way:

Comic Sans use should not be justified by claims of increased readability or benefits to dyslexic students or indeed for handwriting, but if you just like it, and your pupils like it, there is no good reason you should not use it.

“Does Comic Sans help dyslexic learners?” Jon Severs, Tes blog

For those looking for typeface custom-made for dyslexic learners, check out Dyslexie and Open Dyslexic.

Photo via PickPik

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read along
Google Tips and Tricks

Come Read with Me: Google’s Read Along App

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Want to improve your child or student’s reading ability? Google has created a new reading app to make that easier to achieve. You may recall Google’s previous entry into reading apps, Rivet. We wrote about it in Reciprocal Teaching with Google’s Rivet App. Today, we’ll review some important research on reading and then jump into the new Read Along app.

Note: Trying to open the link to the Rivet or Read Along app? Read Along is now in public beta for the web and works in popular browsers. Read Along includes brand new stories from two YouTube content creators. Those include ChuChu TV and USP Studios. Use Read Along as a reading practice tool in schools and at home. For each, use Google Workspace for Education account or personal Google Accounts with Family Link at home, respectively.

The Power of Reading

“On average, Americans aged 20 to 34 spend a 0.11 hours reading daily, which amounts to less than seven minutes per day.” (Source: Statista). Is that trend reflective of what happens in schools?

read along
Fewer than one in five students averaged a half-hour or more of reading per day, and fewer than one in three read between 15 and 29 minutes on a daily basis. Source: Renaissance.com

This can have a profound impact on student learning over the long run.  Jennifer Gonzalez (Cult of Pedagogy) highlights these points from Schmoker’s book, Focus:

  • In the early years, students need time to read, not to do skills drills or reading “activities.” Students should “never, ever engage in cut, color, or paste activities.” Those occupy more than 100 instructional hours per year, asserts Schmoker.
  • Students should read fiction and nonfiction. He says, “We learn to read well by reading a lot for meaning,” when we read to do the following:
    • Analyze or support arguments,
    • Arrive at our own opinions as we make inferences or attempt to solve problems.
  • Students should engage in discussions at least three times per week. These discussion should have established criteria to guide them.

His assertions underscore the importance of reading. You can use Reciprocal Teaching and TRTW. As you can see from the chart below, getting children to read early on has a direct connection to whether students graduate.

read along
Image Source: Struggling Readers, Reading Practice, and Growth

With those statistics and information in mind, we must do more than encourage reading. We have a mandate about what it can do in the lives of our children.

read along
Opening screen of the Read Along app

The App

In the free Android Read Along app, young readers have a digital tutor that assists them in reading text on screen. If you ever read Living Books’ Arthur’s Teacher Troubles, then you have an inkling of how things work.

The app has a reading buddy who listens to your young learner read aloud and offers help when they struggle. Rewards are given in the form of stars.  It works best for children who already have some basic knowledge of the alphabet.

Watch this video of it in action:

The app combines games and stories, as shown below:

read along

The app shows pictures and text on screen and listens to the child read a story. It encourages students to read for ten minutes a day. It will also keep track of how much they’ve read and offer prizes. It has a fun option of playing music in the background that may become annoying.

You can also switch to a variety of languages, such as Spanish. See how books appear in Spanish when you switch languages.

Don’t be afraid to give this app a try with your young reader. It may be the type of engagement your child needs. Read along with your child to improve engagement.

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ela
English Language Arts Reading (ELAR)

Using Tech for ELA Differentiation and Assessment

by Nicholas Provenzano, Guest Author
written by Nicholas Provenzano, Guest Author

When I taught high school English Language Arts (ELA), one of the ways I utilized technology was to engage my students in different types of reading and writing. While the apps I used over the years have changed and evolved, the reasons behind them always stayed the same. Those reasons are sometimes tough ones for teachers to “sell” to administrators when it comes to using new tools in the classroom.

I remember a time I had to beg to have YouTube unblocked for my class so I could allow students to create and share videos. Sadly, there are still some schools where YouTube and other applications are blocked. Sometimes it just takes the right reason to convince an administrator. Here are a couple of reasons to utilize digital tools to support reading and writing. 

Differentiation in ELA

One of the hardest parts of being a teacher is the need to differentiate all of our lessons to support the wide variety of learner profiles we encounter in a classroom. The days of just standing in the front of the class and talking for 45 minutes in the hopes that everyone writes it all down and memorizes it later should be long behind us. Students and teachers have access to amazing applications that can change the way that they engage with reading and writing.

When it comes to differentiation in the classroom, there are many valuable applications that can dramatically increase student engagement in the reading and writing process. Whenever students asked me how to become better readers and writers, I told them doing more of both is the best way to get better. With more and more tools out there that allow students to engage with the text they read and write, more students will feel comfortable doing the reading. When more students read and write in differentiated situations, everybody wins. 

Differentiation Tools

For students that need support with reading, a teacher can use Newsela to vary the reading level of the same article. This allows the students to read the article at their reading level and still be part of the overall conversation. Nobody has to feel left out of the reading process and the overall learning process.

Snap and Read is another great tool that is a Google Chrome extension that can help students by reading text to the students that need a little more support. Like Newsela, there is a feature that will allow readers to highlight text and adjust the reading level to meet their needs. 

Variety of Assessment

One of the things that stood out to me as an ELA teacher was how students would choose to engage in the reading based on the assessment that was going to wrap up the unit. In my first few years, my assessments were the standard multiple choice test. The high achievers would be engaged, but students who struggled with those types of assessments would not be as involved.

Why would they put in the time when they would fail the test whether they read or not? If the final assessment was a formal essay or impromptu writing piece, the students who excelled at writing were engaged in the reading, but those who struggled in that area would check out until the next unit. By looking at the data, I noticed a trend, and I needed to do something about it to increase engagement in all my students. 

The PBL Puzzle

One of the biggest changes in my classroom was the move to Project-Based Learning (PBL). Instead of having me run a class discussion and then students take a test or write an essay, students would dive into the texts themselves, identify theme, symbols, motifs, etc., and then come up with a way to demonstrate their understanding of the text to share with the class. What this did was give all students an opportunity to engage in the text and then engage in the assessment in a meaningful way.

Some students would create movies using iMovie and share on YouTube; some students would create comic books using Pixton; some would create photo portfolios using Google Photos; and the list goes on and on. Students were fully engaged in the reading because they could use the digital tools that they were comfortable with to share what they learned. The more I made the end game clearer to students, the easier it was for them to engage in the reading in the present and plan for their project at the end. 

The variety of assessments added Project-Based Learning and still had places for traditional ELA writing. When students knew they were going to be able to approach texts for essays the same way they approached their projects, I saw an improvement in many of the writing scores. The variety of assessments allowed students to engage in the reading in a personal way because they would be able to use digital tools they knew would help them best explain what they understand. 

Increasing Engagement in ELA

When it comes to increasing engagement in reading and writing, teachers need to start moving beyond traditional instructional methods and embrace the wide variety of technology-based tools that can support students with a wide variety of learning profiles. The more students can connect with the text, the more likely they are to keep reading, work on their writing, and push through obstacles.

Taking the time and implementing different digital tools is worth the extra effort because of the long-lasting impact it can have on students who struggle in English Language Arts classes. At the end of the day, helping these students is what is important. 

You can view a presentation related to this topic here.

unsplash-logoPhoto: Aaron Burden
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ELA
Content AreasEnglish Language Arts Reading (ELAR)ReadingWriting

Favorite ELA Resources from Our Members

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

We asked our TCEA members to share their favorite reading and writing websites, apps, or tools to use for student learning and would like to share that great list with you. Feel free to add your favorite ELA resources at the bottom!

  • ReadWriteThink – Free website for grades K-12 that focuses on all things dealing with literacy and ELA and includes lessons, interactives, calendar activities, and more
  • Newsela and ReadWorks – While only some of the content provided is free, they both provide Lexile levels, word counts, and vocabulary.
  • Epic! for Educators – Thousands of books to read; free for teachers and librarians
  • Wonderopolis – Features Daily Wonders with short summaries and videos for students
  • Book Creator – Online creation and publishing tool that works on web-based devices (including Chromebooks) or as an app on iPad; not free
  • NoRedInk – Builds stronger writers through interest-based curriculum, adaptive exercises, and actionable data; can group by grade bands K-3, 4-6, 7-9 , 10-12
  • Actively Learn – Digital reading platform with ability to scaffold; free and premium plans
  • Literator – This app for iOS and Google helps teachers track their students’ reading success; this is basically a digital binder for guided reading groups and conferring.
  • Automatic Readability Checker – Great to use with students who paste their written text in and receive the number of sentences, words, syllables, and characters in their sample. The program then takes the output of these numbers and plugs them into seven popular readability formulas that let them know the reading level and grade level of the text.
  • WriteReader – Designed for K-2 students with an easy interface, an uncomplicated student login process, and space for both students and teachers to create/edit work
  • The Literacy Shed – A great site full of short films and images that connect to so many literary elements taught in ELA. Scarlett is one of my favorite new ones added in the Inspiration Shed. It has wonderful writing prompts too. This site also has the Mysteries of Harris Burdick  with great lesson ideas in the Mystery Shed. My students also really liked Alma in the Ghostly Shed.  Titanium in the Music Video has some great inference opportunities.  You need to fully preview anything from the Literacy  Shed as some can be pretty out there.  The Lighthouse is a shed by itself, but great for teaching plot. 
  • Storybird – The vibrancy of the images and the simplicity of static font sizes and styles makes the product publisher ready.
  • Phonics Hero – Builds from sounds to single words and then sentences, with children making daily leaps toward conquering reading and spelling; 7-day free trial
  • Flipgrid – Great for book talks
  • Pear Deck Addon for Google Slides – If you haven’t used it, it is similar to Nearpod and its drawing feature allows students to annotate text and respond to readings all in the same presentation; free and premium plans
  • The Writing Center – Perfect for secondary students who need additional writing help; includes handouts and videos for virtually every writing issue your students could come across
  • Crash Course – These YouTube videos are engaging and great for teaching literary themes and important works.
  • Big List of Websites for Elementary Teachers – Check out all of the resources for ELA for elementary teachers.
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Educational Trends

Ed Tech News Roundup: Sight, Sound, and AI Tech

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

Howdy, folks! Welcome to another in a series of periodic ed tech news roundups. We hope you enjoy this one, and if you have a story you’d like to see included, let us know.

2020 Visions

Early in the year, experts, publications, and educators are thinking to what 2020 might bring to education.

  • Talia Milgrom-Elcott explores four major trends the education entrepreneur expects to play a crucial role in shaping education this year. [Forbes]
  • Education journalists identify five trends of their “factors that will drive education in the coming year.” [Education Drive]

Automation Nation

  • Former educator and education writer Jill Barshay explores the ways in which artificial intelligence can be used to make teaching more efficient — and what’s possible today. [The Hechinger Report]
  • Ed tech consultant Carolina Milanesi reports on the latest trends in AI, how it might drive education forward, and how it will affect the teachers of the future. [Forbes]

Listening to Learn

Recorded books aren’t new, but the rise in popularity of audio books on connected devices has also seen audio books integrated into the learning process more broadly. Now we’re beginning to measure the effect and impact of audio books in schools.

  • A new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience shows that listening to audio can “light up” the same areas of the brain that are used when reading. [Discover]
  • Journalist Melissa Pandika reviews recent research on audio books and asks the question: Does listening to a book “count” as reading it? [Mic]

… And Finally

Viral challenges have been popular for years now. Some raise money for charity, some are just for fun. Still others can cause trouble — like when an attempt at the “Outlet Challenge” caused electrical damage in an Amarillo-area school. [KVII Amarillo]

unsplash-logoPhoto: Vidar Nordli-Mathisen
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flipgrid
Educational TrendsGood TeachingProfessional Learning

Four Features to Make Better Use of Flipgrid

by Dr. Bruce Ellis
written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

You have probably already heard of Flipgrid and perhaps even started using it, at least to some degree. It definitely seems to be the perfect tool to support students in many ways, not to mention using it as a way to provide peer- and content-support to teachers.

As I have worked with teachers and administrators, though, it seems that most folks using Flipgrid aren’t making the most of some great features it offers. I usually hear from educators, after sharing Flipgrid as part of a larger training, that they wish they knew about the features sooner and are stoked to start using it in even more engaging ways. You could say that they caught #flipgridFever!

Update Your Profile

Begin by making sure that your profile is updated. Don’t be shy. This will allow others to better connect with you. Click on your image in the top right and select Profile. Select a photo or avatar for your profile picture. If you have a picture that has a busy background or you want to use a quick editing tool to remove the background (as I did on my bitmoji image), go to remove.bg, upload, and edit your image as needed.

Once done editing, download your image and upload it for your profile by clicking on your current Flipgrid profile image. For your account information, be sure to choose all the grades and subjects that you have experience with. Complete the most current bio description of who you are and what you do within the 256-character limit. Lastly, share how you would like to connect by providing any social media information or links. When done, click the Update Profile button. Now, let’s jump into some useful tools.

1. GridPals

GridPals is, as you may have deduced, Flipgrid’s version of pen pals. It’s a super easy way to connect with other educators and enthusiasts to further learning and improve education.

Begin by clicking on the #GridPals link at the top of your Flipgrid screen (assuming you are on a computer). Change your status from Hidden to Active so that you and others can find each other and connect. A window will pop up allowing you to edit your profile and add the location where you are. For mine, I entered Austin, Texas, United States. Click the Next button to continue. You are now able to give permission for other GridPals to contact you. Plus, Flipgrid never shares your contact email with them until you reply, so you have complete control. Edit/add any social connections if you would like and then click the Join GridPals! button. Woohoo! You are now in the GridPals group!

So, what do you do if you don’t have students? Why would you want to be a part of GridPals? Even if you don’t have students, you might be asked to share with a group of students because of your job or area of expertise. It also helps you stay up-to-date on how others are using Flipgrid in the classroom, from early childhood up through college!

2. Disco Library

Yep, Flipgrid has a disco library. Well, in layman’s terms, it might better be called a template gallery, but “disco library” is so much more hip and exciting!

In the Disco Library, you can access templates that other educators have created to spark new ideas of interacting with your students, as well as jump start your process. No need to start a topic from scratch if someone else has already created it for you. Flipgrid also lets you know the following when you enter the Disco Library:

  • No student videos will be shared when a Topic is added to the Disco Library.
  • You can edit Topic information before or after you share. Topics can be removed at any time.
  • Other Flipgrid educators will not see that you’ve added their Topic template and vice versa.

Using Weekly Hits

The #FlipgridWeeklyHits shares 50 topic templates that you might be interested in. You can scroll (left-to-right) through the list of thumbnails or click on the View All link to jump down to the list as a set of search results. Scrolling through the list, I have found several that spark creative ideas of how I can support students that I haven’t thought of before using a specific student standard, or support teachers with a unique area to share on a particular topic that is meaningful to those like-minded teachers. It’s almost like a PLN (professional leaning network) in Flipgrid!

After clicking on the View All link, you will drop down to the list and be able to see who the topic template creator identified as the audience, the subject area, how many times it has been used, and how many favorites it has. Just click on the topic template to get more information about the topic. If you want to use it, just select which of your grids you want to add it to.

Featured Disco Playlists are sets of topic templates provided by various organizations such as code.org, Wonderopolis, Hacking for STEM, and more. When you find topic templates that you like, either as part of a playlist, a weekly hit, or ones that you find by using the search feature, click the Add to Favs at the top of the descriptive window about the template. This will allow you to begin creating your own playlist of favorites to share with others.

Using the Disco Library

The easiest way to add one of your topics to the Disco Library is to go to the list of topics within the grid you want to share. If you want to share multiple topics to the Disco Library, you’ll need to share each one individually. And remember, no student videos currently in your topic will be included in the template.

Right-click on the Actions button of the topic you want to share and select Add to Disco Library. Your topic will be submitted to the Flipgrid team to review for appropriateness and value. You will notice your stats near the top letting you know how many topics you’ve added (once they are accepted and added), how many times they have been used, and how much video engagement (hours/minutes/seconds) has been generated.

3. MixTapes

No, this isn’t creating mixtapes on cassettes like we might have done back in the ’80s and ’90s to give to someone special. This is a whole new way of sharing — but based on the same principle.

A mixtape is a compilation of any videos that are in any of your topics, in any of your grids. Begin by adding a new mixtape, which really means creating a folder for the videos you want to add.

Once a mixtape is created, go into the various topics and locate the videos you want to add. Right-click on the Actions button of the video to add and select Add to MixTapes. Select the specific mixtape to add it to and click the Add button. Voilà! You are now on the way to being a mixtape master. Now all you need to do is go to the specific mixtape and click on the blue Share button. You can easily share you a specific mixtape via url, QR code, embed code, Google Classroom, and via Remind.

Using MixTapes

Consider making a mixtape as a study aid or glossary for your students as they review information for a major test. If you work with teachers, then consider creating a mixtape of them sharing ideas of how they are making a difference in their classroom or how they are implementing a particular strategy in their classroom that the whole campus (or district) is working on.

For example, if I’m working with ELA teachers across the district, I may create a topic in which they share how they are implementing the new ELA standards, tips or tricks they have to share for other teachers, or ways they are implementing something they learned while in our district professional development time. I could then make a mixtape of several of the videos to create a synopsis of great things that are going on, and I might share this mixtape with principals so they can get an idea of how ELA teachers at other campuses are setting an example.

4. Shorts

Shorts are brief videos, no longer than three minutes, that you (as the teacher) can create to share how-to’s, introduce a lesson, provide a video note to parents, or just share an update.

Once created, you can share in a variety of ways: by url, embed code, QR code, Google Classroom, via Remind, or download and share via Google Drive or YouTube as you might normally share a video. As when students are creating a video, you can add a filter, stickers, text, draw on the video, and even make use of Live Inking on a whiteboard or blackboard.

Live Inking is great when you have a digital pen or slate (so your writing is more legible) to use and need to create a quick tutorial video on something such as how to solve a binomial equation, explain in a simple manner what cloud computing is, or some other situation where it is helpful for the person to see you illustrate the concept or skill while hearing you talk; in this instance the video isn’t on you but just the white/blackboard is being recorded. And if you right-click on the More icon (the three dots just to the right of the record icon), you can upload a sticker, which could signal to the students the topic or subject area or could be used as simple branding of your videos.

How Do You Use Flipgrid?

So how do you use Flipgrid? Which feature(s) have you found to be the most impactful? Even if you haven’t had a chance to use Flipgrid, have you come across an innovative way to incorporate it in the teaching and learning process or in professional development? We’d love to hear from you!

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