Have you ever found it a challenge when encouraging students to write more interesting narratives? Do they forget to include great adjectives, adverbs etc to add that pizzazz? If so, have them type a noun from their writing into the ‘Describing Words’ website, which will generate numerous adjectives to help them out.
If students are searching for related words, using the second link should provide them with plenty of suggestions!
Included in the site are some excellent story starters for student writing plus teacher resources. Well worth look!
Here is a wonderful resource for the literacy classroom! The site consists of three main areas – Student, Teaching Tools and Professional Learning. Students can work through online tasks, registering with a temporary code so their work is saved for the session. No email or personal details are required. Activities are supported by videos and audio/written instructions, extremely motivating for both the students and the teachers. The linked headings below will give you a glimpse of part of what is available on this website. Great skills…great learning!
I’ve always loved The Literacy Shed and was excited to stumble upon the Mathematics Shed. What a valuable find. This site is the latest creation of the team behind the Literacy Shed. There are resources for all ages and abilities to be found – downloads of books, games plus much more. This will be a link that I regularly visit!
The Wizer worksheet builder is intuitive and compliments teachers’ experience and creativity by allowing quick creation of a wide variety of question types: open questions, multiple choice, matching pairs, fill in the blank, fill on an image, tables, etc..
Wizer is engaging. It allows teachers to easily add any rich media (video, audio, images) directly to the blended worksheet. Videos can captivate the mind for learning or practising new skills and sparking the imagination for creative tasks.’
Join the community. Use worksheets others have made and share your own.
Possible uses: formative/summative assessment. homework, independent research etc.
Plickers lets you poll your class for free, without the need for student devices. Just give each student a card (a “paper clicker”), and use your iPhone to scan them to do instant checks-for-understanding, exit tickets, and impromptu polls. Best of all, your data is automatically saved, student-by-student, at plickers.com. (This app works with Android as well)
21st Century Learning is vastly different to anything we experienced as students! EdX and Mooc takes learning to a new global level by offering numerous free, online courses that can be easily added to your skillset. Collaboration with participants from around the world enriches the learning experience. This seems to be the way of the future so let me know if you choose to dive in!
The flipped classroom has been shown through research to be one of the most effective methods to engage students in their learning and encourage collaboration. Verso enables teachers to prepare activities for students to complete and respond to anonymously (only the teacher can see who responds), increasing participation rate for those less confident students.
Verso is a research-based teaching and learning tool that was developed with a focus on questioning, collaboration, and critical thinking.
Designed to give all students a voice and encourage deeper learning, Verso is based on the research of the following educational thought leaders: Alan November, Michael Fullan OC, John Hattie, Eric Mazur and Carol Dweck.
“To this end, activating student voice and adding a layer of anonymity to support risk-taking is essential if we are to make original thinking visible.” (John Hattie – http://versoapp.com/research)
Verso:
The Flipped classroom is a clever way of maximising learning with students. The idea of the students preparing themselves before the lesson, coming armed with the necessary prior knowledge, can only make classroom teaching more effective. EDpuzzle is a place where video material can be selected from reputable educational websites and loaded into a lesson plan for the students to use online (if Youtube is blocked at your school, go to the FAQ for hints). Each student is given a class code, thus dispensing with the need to sign up. The teacher can clip the video, record comments at any point and insert discussion questions or multiple choice questions to actively involve them in their learning. Follow the online tour of the capabilities of the site.
This is an excellent way to encourage the students to own their learning. Fabulous!
Mindmapping tools are so useful. There are many different ones out there, but simplemind is the easiest one I’ve come across which not only performs well but does so without having to sacrifice some brilliant features. The trial version allows three maps only, but they can be exported in many file formats.
ideasict 