If you love virtual reality and your students love virtual reality, you will certainly be excited by the addition of 360 virtual reality images now possible with Thinglink. Take your students on a virtual tour or have them create one. Either way, engaging! Read more on the Thinglink Blog!
I've been a Thinglink Education user for over four years. This year I begin my fifth year. That says something for the staying power of Thinglink for Education. Thinglink Education has evolved and year after year has become an even better tool for use in the classroom.
If you love virtual reality and your students love virtual reality, you will certainly be excited by the addition of 360 virtual reality images now possible with Thinglink. Take your students on a virtual tour or have them create one. Either way, engaging! Read more on the Thinglink Blog!
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If you are a Symbaloo user, a Lesson Plan Symbaloo is in Beta right now. A number of Symbaloo PD Pro Certified users have been invited to test out the Beta version. I am one of them. I have been using Symbaloo with my students for four years. I teach computer classes and organize grade levels and class projects with Symbaloo. This is far better than a page of hyperlinks. I haven't created a lesson plan yet but have taken a peak at the way you can set it up. This is going to be a giant leap ahead, this is a Leap Year, for organizing steps in a project. Here's a peek tutorial.
At the small school where I used to work, scheduling of Parent/Teacher conferences dated back to the dark ages. Paper forms were sent home to parents to select a date and time, distributed to their classroom teacher, and an after school meeting was held to auction off dates and times for scheduling. Then, a hand-written master list was sent to the office, typed on a computer, and copies found their way into our mailboxes in the teachers' room. Hard to believe, but true.
I discovered a tool called PTC fast that eliminates all of the above. Maybe your school needs an upgrade to the process of scheduling. This is a much better way. I reviewed the website and I like it. Best of all it's free! I can think of better things to auction off rather than slots on a schedule. I am always looking for new tools to use in my computer classes with Middle School students. Tools that will engage them while I accomplish lesson objectives. With Middle School students you need to provide a variety of tools. Students will soon disengage if you overuse an app.
My goal was to guide my eighth grade students through a series of discussion questions about Digital Citizenship. I considered using the new Google Classroom discussion feature, but wanted more control to monitor a real-time discussion. I decided to try todaysmeet.com and upgraded to the Teacher version. The upgrade would allow me to mute students without their knowledge, pause a room, and allow for entry via my school's domain rather than an open discussion room. Five dollars for a month-that I could do. It sounded great. I did not find the upgrade teacher friendly. Students had to create accounts which took time and provided a real distraction. How about a join code to keep it private? Not available. The class went off task, real-time discussions made muting difficult, and todaysmeet turned out to be that day's disaster. My one month subscription was easy enough to cancel and they actually provided a credit for the remaining month I did not use. A lesson learned. Not an app that I plan to retain in my teacher toolbox. Last year Google launched Google Classroom. I used Classroom for my Computer Classes replacing my Google Form assignment submission. This is my second year and Google has made more changes.
If you are a Computer Science teacher for K-12 you may want to consider joining the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA). There are regional branches for your state. Members of these branches meet and share. Membership is FREE for your first year. Benefits for the first year include:
Join CSTA today at csta.acm.org!
Summer is a busy time when I move from mostly technology to hobbies and special projects. Thus, my absence from regular posts on this blog. I am very much into street photography and in July I shoot another year of a ten-year project. I am also doing online training with Train Simple learning more about Photoshop. Then off to Boston bringing back more photos to work on in my digital darkroom.
Upon my return I participated in the Week 3 Thinglink Teacher's Challenge. The task was to incorporate leveled reading assignments for students and to use Google Forms and Docs into a project. Not an easy task but I am excited to use a new project with my students in the coming school year. I would like to share some exemplary teacher creations from the Week 3 challenge. Perhaps you will be inspired. Click on the right arrow to advance the slide show. Happy First Day of Summer! I always like to have a "summer" technology project. Last year I joined the Thinglink Summer Teacher Challenge. It was the first one. I am happy to see that there will be another. For me, I experienced a growth spurt in my knowledge of Thinglink. Through the Teacher Challenge I went on to become a Thinglink Expert Educator. That's how terrific the challenge is! I invite you to join this summer's challenge! For me information, read Susan's blog. The first week of the challenge is June 28, 2015. Hope to see you there!
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November 2015
AuthorPatricia Merlino is an Adjunct Professor for Arcadia University and teaches Middle School Computer Science. Categories |