Safe Search Engines and Research Websites for Students

Research sites

Shelly Sanchez Terrell’s blog, TeacherRebootCamp.com offers a number of musings and resources.  Her December 19th posting within her December 2020 STEM Resources Digital Calendar, comments on student search engine and research site usage and reminds us of sites geared more towards education than the default Google and YouTube students might otherwise lean towards.  Sites such as The Kids Should See This, DK Findout, Ducksters, Science News for Students, are just some of the ones she calls out. Certainly you might already be familiar with some, but perhaps you will encounter one that is new to you that you find worthwhile enough to bring to the attention of some of your students. Happy researching.

BrainPop’s January Teachers Lounge

BrainPop Teachers Lounge

BrainPop’s January newsletter for K-12 instructional staff can be found HERE.

As a reminder, all district students, K-12 can access our paid subscription to BrainPop/BrainPop Jr via Clever at https://clever.com/in/pccs

Pics below show some of what’s in their latest newsletter.

SEL resources
Understanding things better
Further considerations….

 

Websites to check out

Webby Awards

The Webby Awards annually note websites with interesting design and elements to explore.  Here are some sites you might want to check out, in no particular order:

Future of Tech hosts a free & growing library of resources to get you up to speed on what’s new & next.

Poly is an online library where people can browse, share, and remix thousands of 3D models or scenes.

People Not Property: Stories of Slavery in the Colonial North 

Canvas is a Chrome/Google supported drawing app.

Applied Digital Skills reviews digital skills needed for the jobs of today and tomorrow with Google’s free video lessons.

Ted-Ed lessons

AFT’s Share My Lesson

 

 

REMC January newsletter, course details

REMC newsletter

See REMC’s latest newsletter HERE

Featuring free virtual courses with 10 free SCECHs each. The courses below start on January 4 and the registration deadline is January 1.

Five Jamboard templates for all subject areas

Jamboard

John Sowash offers five Jamboard templates work for all ages and subject areas! Check them out HERE.

Three of these Jamboard activities work well as whole-class assignments. Two more work best as individual or small-group activities.

These Jamboard lessons work with Chromebooks, tablets, phones, and laptops.

 

Check out these Education Tech Blogs

Ed Tech

Every so often we share news of EdTech websites to check out. Today we’re alerting you to three, each of which is chockablock with tips and musings to explore within the interface of pedagogy and tech.

  • Matt Miller’s Ditch That Textbook website has lots of resources and ideas to ponder.
  • Jake Miller is known for his animated gifs and the embedded lessons he puts in them. Check out one strand of his efforts to educate on Google Sheets HERE or all of his animated GIFS in a folder HERE
  • Laura Cahill’s EngagEDucate website offers lots of resources

In case you want to check out others’ recommendations for EdTech blogs, see BrainScape’s, Explain Everything’s or Kathy Schrock’s lists.

Elementary School Teachers – FYI, grading periods have been set in Canvas

Canvas Grading Periods

Earlier this week the district updated Canvas with the dates of the three grading periods for all of our elementary school year-long courses. Consequently, elementary school teachers are now able to filter their grade books, assignments’ list, and students’ grades pages by trimester instead of having to view all graded content from the school year.  Since implementation, STUDENTS only have VIEW-ONLY ACCESS to first trimester course content and are no longer able to submit work for assignments associated with the first trimester since it is not the current grading period AND TEACHERS similarly CAN NO LONGER ADJUST GRADES/FEEDBACK for first trimester submissions.

Please find quick overview directions and screenshots in this document for term filtering.

* High School Teachers – likely we will be setting grading periods for your semester-long and year -long courses too, so that you may filter by term as well.

Using Google Drawings to Create Infographics

Inforgraphics

One way students can show their knowledge of a topic is by creating an infographic. Infographics, by nature, require students to summarize their learning and choose important information to present visually and textually.

Google Drawings is a great tool to create infographics and it’s likely familiar to navigate. Google Drawings offers options for uploading images, drawing shapes, and adding color. Below is a short video tutorial for students on how to use Google Drawings.

For those who are familiar with Google Drawings and want some super neat tricks you may not know about, check out this video from Matt Miller.

For even more information on student-created infographics, check out this blog post by Matt Miller!

This post is actually a reposting of Dearborn Schools’ Tech Integrationist Amy Gwizdz (thanks Amy!) December post https://techcoaches.dearbornschools.org/2020/12/10/student-created-infographics-using-google-drawings/