HyperDocs

 Today's post is all about HyperDocs which I am trying to use more in my classroom! 

HyperDocs are plans that students complete digitally. They are engaging and able to be designed to meet the needs of all the students in the classroom. They allow the students to review the content before it is taught by the teacher with more instruction. 

Click Here to learn more about how they can transform your teaching.

Click here to access instructions on how to create your own HyperDoc from scratch 

If you are not wanting to start from scratch, HyperDocs has many templates that will aid in the process (see picture below).

*Make sure to check out the rest of this website as well because they have a lot of useful information when it comes to creating them*

I have also included a HyperDoc that I created for a math lesson . 

Community Support for educators

 In this post, I have listed some useful resources that I have found that give educators inspiration, ideas, training, and conversations about teaching.

1. We are Teachers website/twitter 

• I go to this website when I need inspiration during difficult days or just when I want some ideas for how to go about teaching something. This website and the twitter account constantly are giving out helpful information for teachers. 

2. Edutopia website/twitter 

• This website and twitter account give up to date information about different concepts that are making a difference in the education of students. I enjoy reading the articles because they give me insight as to how I can improve my practice daily for my students. 

3. Not So Wimpy Teacher facebook page

• I follow the page for this group dealing with 4th graders. This page on facebook was created so other teachers could bounce ideas off of each other. It is also a place where educators can ask different questions and other teachers in the same grade level can offer support. Occasionally, the admin of the page will post free resources that all those who follow the page can access on her Teachers Pay Teachers website. I enjoy this page because it helps me get answers to common questions I may have dealing with 4th grade subjects. It is great to be able to communicate with fellow teachers who are teaching similar concepts but are in different states. 

4. Cult of Pedagogy blog

• This is a blog that I found back in undergraduate school. It has a plethora of resources that deal with improving teaching practices, exploring theories, and topics in education that many teachers do not speak a lot about or want more information about. This blog was extremely helpful during my first year of teaching because I struggled with classroom management. The posts she and the other authors wrote really helped me understand and channel what I needed to do in my classroom to help make everything run more smoothly. The authors of this blog truly understand education and how to make unknown concepts more understandable for everyone. I highly recommend this blog!!

5. 10 Minute Teacher podcast 

• This podcast gives teachers tips, ideas, and inspiration for working with students in a classroom today. I listen to about 2 of these on my commute to school each morning. It helps put me in the right headspace before I go into work each day.

6. Truth for Teachers podcast

• This podcast is another good one to listen to if you need an extra boost of encouragement, motivation, and inspiration for the day. I am all about having a positive mindset when I enter the building each morning. Usually I will listen to this one when my students are at specials because it gives me the extra boost of encouragement that I need some days. 

  
  
  
  

Interactive Bitmoji slides

Interactive slides are becoming more popular with educators because they are creative and engaging for the students. Additionally they give students a plethora of activities to complete using technology. 

Click Here to access information about how educators are using these interactive slides to create engagement and community in classrooms. 

Additional websites I would highly recommend if interested in creating these interactive slides for your classrooms:

- Bitmoji Classroom Train

- Bitmoji Craze for Educators ( This is helpful if you use Facebook and has a lot of useful information) 

The final link below is an example of a project I completed using the interactive slides. Creating these interactive slides is a trial and error process. It takes time and attention to detail to make it visually appealing and engaging for the students. Enjoy! 

Interactive slides project

Integrating technology in the classroom

 In this blog we will be talking about the advantages, disadvantages, and specific activities involved with integrating technology in social studies.

Advantages of Integrating Technology

Technology is so prevalent in schools nowadays, it is almost impossible to avoid it.That is not a bad thing though. As Roblyer(2016) pointed out, technology tools make possible a variety of strategies to enhance learning for the diverse topics and concepts that comprise social studies content. Technology allows teachers as well as students to research ideas that may not be readily available in just a classroom setting and to have a sense of adventure for studying social studies. Our world is becoming more tech savvy each day, so if we introduce our students to resources that are available on the internet, it will benefit them and they will become able to navigate the internet much more easily than before.

I have linked an article that I thoroughly enjoyed about how using technology during a social studies lesson made everything “come alive” for the students. Very good read!

Technology and Social Studies

Disadvantages of Integrating Technology

As with every advantage to integrating technology, there is always a disadvantage side to it that teachers, students and parents all need to be aware of. A big concern is that the internet is creating an issue when it comes to the traditional student- teacher relationship in the classroom. This could be caused by the students relying on the internet to the extent that students may start to question their teachers if their answer is not the same as what they researched. We need to make sure students are checking the accuracy of the sources they are reading because we never know the true accuracy of an internet source. Another disadvantage is that Social studies is usually put on the back burner, as Roblyer(2016) mentioned, so teachers have to look for inexpensive or even free resources that are not teaching the students what they need to know before moving to the next grade level.

I linked an article talking about the disadvantages and advantages of technology in the classroom! Highly recommend reading.

Disadvantages of Technology

Specific Activities, Programs, Etc.

• I think simulations dealing with events in social studies are very handy to students in today’s world. As Roblyer(2016) said, these products are designed to immerse students in problem-solving scenarios where they must make decisions and apply information they have learned. The students think they are playing a game, when really they are showing off what they know about a certain topic. How cool is that?!
• Primary Sources  are another huge part of teaching social studies. We want our students to be presented and see actual documents pertaining to what they have been learning about. It makes everything “come alive” for the students, AND they know it is accurate. There are many places to find these primary sources!
• Virtual Field Trips  are another huge hit with not only the students, but the teachers as well. They enjoy being able “to go to places” that they could not easily go to in real life. All of the different places they go visit in this virtual world deepens their understanding and create a more defined perspective about the world around them.
  - Click here to access different ways to set up virtual field trips in your classroom
  
  

There are many more programs that teachers can use to actively involve students in their learning, these were just MY favorites!

Works Cited:

Roblyer, M.D. (2016). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching. New Jersey: Pearson.

World Wide Web Fun!

 This post covers a wide range of topics including search engines, safety and evaluation of websites.

Search Engines 

To find quality information online, students need to be made aware of certain things. The main thing students need to be aware of is the URL for the website. If the URL typically ends in .org,.gov, or .edu, it is safe to assume that the information on the website is educational for students. As Roblyer (2016) mentioned, teachers can assist students' searching skills by making them thoroughly search for the research, advise them to use keywords rather than questions, and guide them through the advanced search options to narrow down what they are looking for.

Website Evaluation Video

This video will help students understand what they need to look out for when trying to evaluate websites for accuracy. In this video, I liked how it is paced! This makes it easier for students to pay attention and grasp the information more clearly. It also gives examples under the steps it suggests, so students who may not know where to look have a better idea of where to find the information. 

Favorite Websites 

Teaching Tolerance: This website is used to assist students in reducing prejudice and showing acceptance and appreciation for all the diversity that may be present in a classroom. I think this is a wonderful website because tolerance is a difficult concept to cover in schools and having resources that are readily available for all teachers is very helpful. Click here to access the resources you can use in your classroom!

PBS Learning Media: This website enables teachers to browse standards specific to what grade you are teaching and find different types of resources to use during lessons. This website even allows teachers to lesson build, make quizzes, and create presentations with the PBS videos. I think any teacher would LOVE this website because the resources are all FREE, engaging, and age appropriate for the students!

Roblyer(2016) mentioned criteria that students should use when evaluating websites, and these two websites fill this criteria because they both have easy navigation, visual appeal, accurate and up-to-date content, and appropriate media.

Online Safety and Security 
When looking at online safety and security, many teachers and students consider the filtering software that is on the school computers. For those of you that don't know, filtering software, as Roblyer(2016) put it, is what limits access to sites on the basis of keywords and a list off-limit sites on the school campus. The main goal of this software is just to make sure that students are accessing appropriate materials during the school day. Just remember that this software does not guarantee that issues will not arise at times. It is still a possibility, as with most other software.

References

Roblyer, M. D. (2016). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Erin Foley (2015, August 19). Evaluating Websites. Retrieved February 28,2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mqfg2xERN0

Google Add-Ons

Since Google is becoming more popular in classrooms, here are some of my recommended add-ons that not only teachers but students can use in the classroom! Enjoy! 

 Materials Generators

As Roblyer mentioned, “these materials generators help the teachers and students produce online and paper instructional materials.”(Roblyer,2016, p. 141)

1. Bingo Card Maker

• This generator can be used for multiple subjects as a review game!
• It has many different size bingo cards to choose from as well.

2. QR Code Generator

• It allows over 80 different types of barcodes!
• Teachers can insert QR codes to allow students to go and view information that they deem relevant in the classroom.

Testing & Grading Tools

The testing and grading tools allow teachers to keep track of the progress of each student in the classroom. This way, it can be easily measured in the end to see the progression of learning.

1. Orange Slice: Student and Teacher rubrics

• Allows teachers and students to easily create rubrics and give feedback for assignments
• The teacher or students also get to choose the criteria for each assignment

2. Flubaroo

• This tool allows teachers to see the average grade of the entire class as well as other grading groups.
• It allows teachers to email a student's score to them and provide them with individualized feedback.

Graphics Tools

Graphic tools “allow images to be manipulated to illustrate documents and web pages.” (Roblyer, 2016, p.141) This could mean adding more than just words to support what we are talking about on an assignment.

1. Tagxedo

• Can be used to help show a student's creativity on projects for class.
• Can be used as a way students show off what they know about certain topics.

    2.  Mind Meister

• This tool allows the users to turn a bullet point list, into an image that is easily editable by whoever sees it.
• This is a great tool to use during writing when a teacher is trying to see a student's thought process.

Planning and Organizing Tools

These tools simply allow teachers to organize their ideas in a concrete way to make their lives easier and less stressful during the day.

1. Planboard
   

• This tool is essentially adding ease to lesson planning for a teacher's busy work schedule

• It allows you to plan lessons online and then track the progression of each lesson
• Can also be used to track attendance of students

2. Highlight Tool

• This is good for highlighting information that students or teachers may need to understand on websites
• You can choose different colors to signal the importance of the idea or thought on the page (For example, you could use red to mean you MUST know this, while green may just be used to highlight common information.)

Research & Reference Tools

As Roblyer mentioned, research and reference tools “ let students look up information in electronic versions”, rather than a hard copy of what they normally use to aid in research. (Roblyer,2016,p 141.)

1. Encyclopedia Britannica

• What is not to love about encyclopedias? They have information on just about anything you want to search.
• This extension will show on you what articles this encyclopedia deems as accurate and reliable.
• There is also the actual website you can search for as well!

    2. Paperpile

• This tool allows its users to organize and label their papers so they are easily found.
• It also allows its users to save documents and import them to where everything is locatable(i.e. Google Drive)

Sources Cited:

Roblyer, M.D. (2016). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching. New Jersey: Pearson

Symbaloo

 Our first post is about a tool called Symbaloo. This tool is useful in creating shortcuts for students as well as parents and educators for the various resources used in the classroom daily. 

I am linking how to videos about how to create these webmixes on Symbaloo and how to personalize them! 

Creating webmixes

I am also posting my personal webmixes I have created for all the core subjects in school as well as social emotional learning! Let me know in the comments section which resources are new to you or familiar! 

Reading

Math

Science

Social Studies

Social Emotional Learning