Happy New Year!! I hope your 2015 finished on a high note. It is easy to look back and find the negative items from your last year, but hopefully you don't have to look too hard for the great things that occurred in 2015 as well.
Since this is my first post of 2016, I figured I better suggest a few New Year's Resolutions for you to
try in your classroom this year. Each of these "resolutions" are methods, websites, and suggestions for you to make your class more interactive and exciting for your students AND you. You do not have to try them all, but just try getting out of your comfort zone and see what your students think.
Have a fantastic second semester!
1.
Edulastic - This is a fairly new website that is an excellent resource for creating questions and activities similar to those on the ISTEP+.
Edulastic has the usual multiple choice, true-false, and short answer questions, but they have also made it so you can create drag-and-drop questions, multiple answer questions, and ordering questions. You can create your own classes and follow their progress as they move through an assessment. The data you can get back from these types of activities are priceless!
2.
Google Forms, Drawings, or Maps - Google has created a fantastic suite of useful services through its Google Apps for Education. Most teachers have used Docs, Sheets, and Slides, but not everyone has really dived into Google's other creative options--Forms, Drawings, and Maps.
Forms are very useful for surveys or data collection. You can also use them for assessments along with the add-on
Flubaroo. Those can make your grading much easier and shorter!
Drawings has so many different uses. Check out this article from MakeUseOf that gives you
"8 Creative Uses of Google Drawings You Shouldn't Ignore". If you want to see the creative juices of your students, let them loose with Drawings! Google My Maps is an exceptional way to have students learn more about specific places. They can also work on Maps to learn more about distances between places and create and share their maps. Students can also work on the same maps at the same time, edit them, and then share them with you! Check out
this website for more ways to learn how to use them in your classroom.
3.
Google Add-ons, Apps, and Extensions - Google has given everyone the
Chrome Web Store for us to peruse. Through the Web Store you can find Apps and Extensions that are useful for your every day life. I always like to look through the store to see if there is anything new and exciting. And just the other day, I found "
Boomerang for Gmail". Check out it's features. I trust you will find some handy. This is just one of the gems that you can uncover if you search through the Chrome Web Store.
As much fun as the Chrome Web Store is, you also need to remember there are some "Add-ons" within each of the different Google suite applications. Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms all have specific add-ons you can find within each application. I already talked about Flubaroo for Sheets, but there are also some other great ones such as
EasyBib,
gMath, and
Kaizena. Check these out and make your life easier!
4.
Flipping your Classroom - Before taking my current position, I taught high school math for 13 years. One of the best classroom decisions I ever made was to "flip" my classroom. Basically, what I did was create video examples of math problems, upload them to YouTube, and then posted them for the students to view...at home. In class time was reserved for practice problems, quizzes, engaging activities, and explorations. WOW! What a difference! I was more tired using this method, but it was highly effective for my students. They loved the time I was able to devote to answering their questions. Too many times in math, students take notes, get a little time to do practice problems, and then are expected to go home and do all their homework. Well, what happens when they get stuck? Do they keep moving on? Or do some of them just quit? I loved this format and would highly recommend you try flipping a chapter or a section. See how your students respond to the freedom you give them in the classroom. Once you try it a couple of times, it makes eLearning days waaaaay better and easier for both you and the students. If you have some interest in this, let me know. I would be happy to help you get set up.
5.
New and Innovative 21st Century Technologies - Drones, 3D printing, Google Cardboard, 360 degree videos, and Spheros...just to name a few. These are items that are at your disposal and can make a rather boring lesson into an engaging and exciting one for your students and for you. If you want to add some excitement into your classroom, then engage the students. If you tried the "Hour of Code", then you saw the engagement levels increase in most of your students. They were doing something meaningful and engaging. Even if you want to use any of these tools as a "hook", it is a great way to get the kids ready for the 21st Century jobs that await them. We need to prepare the students for
their adult life, not ours. Just think how different your adult life is compared to your parents. Remarkable, isn't it?! Below is a short video clip from a drone flight Mrs. Kinzie's class took a couple weeks ago. Have you ever seen Delphi from 150 feet in the air? Think this might engage your classroom?
Well, I hope these ideas give you some ideas and a little spark for this semester. Just think, it is only 3 short days until we see the smiling faces of the reason we go to work every day!
