TED Ed

Most of you have probably heard of the TED talks before. TED talks are "ideas worth spreading" and focus on Technology, Engineering, and Design. From the same people has now emerged TED Ed, and it isn't just about technology!

On TED Ed, you can find entire flipped lessons, created by teachers. AND you can personalize these using a simple interface.  You can also use this site to create a lesson around ANY YouTube video!
I am going to hazard a guess that this is going to be an amazing resource, and I can't wait to dig in deeper!

I really encourage you to take the3 minute tour and find out more! Click here to go to TED Ed for the tour!

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Remind 101

Okay, this is super great for teachers. It's designed just for the educational setting! Basically, this is a way for you to text your kids and parents reminders about things that are coming up. They can even receive the text messages via email if they prefer. The teacher sets up an account, and kids can "subscribe". the teacher never sees the student phone numbers, only the number of people who have subscribed. The teacher then sends out a text and it is received by everyone on the list.

Accounts are free to create, and you can create up to 10 different groups within your username. You just tell the kids which one to sign up for. So for example, I could create a group for my on-level kids, my PAP kids, and the extra-curricular activity that I sponsor. SO COOL!

You can even schedule ahead, so you can pre-write your text reminding the kids about the text next week, and have the system send it the day before. I think that the way kids communicate these days, this is a super effective tool!

Find this cool tool at https://www.remind101.com/

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iSpring

iSpring is a nifty little tool that can convert your PowerPoints to flash. You download this to your computer, and it appears as a tab within PowerPoint. Why would you want this? Well, flash files are smaller than video files created when you record narration with PowerPoint, making them more suitable for upload to the web (Google Docs or Moodle). If you are thinking about giving the Flipped Classroom methodologies a try, this may be a helpful tool to have in your arsenal!

Find iSpring Here!

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Today's Meet

Have you heard of Today's Meet? I first ran across this kind of thing while attending conferences. Today's Meet is an example of a "Back Channel". It is a place to hold an instant messaging conversation among a group pf people. Presenters will use this to provide a place for participants to talk about what they are viewing. When David and I presented at TCEA last year, we set up a Back Channel on Today's meet so people could ask questions or give us feedback during the presentation. One of us did the speaking while the other monitored the Back Channel and responded to questions. Multi-tasking at it's finest.

Now, how about putting this in the classroom? You could set up a Back Channel for kids to use to ask questions during a project. Then you or other students could answer them. This would be a great time for a teacher to use a personal device like an ipad or phone to monitor the back channel while walking the room. I would never encourage a teacher to sit at their own computer for the whole class to monitor this!

Today a teacher used a back channel with her students for a discussion about a novel. Then they had another back channel for the kids to write an exit ticket for class! What a great idea!

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Triptico

Here is a cool little gem sent to me by Miss Kristy McCoy who is always full of great resources. This is unique. It is a desktop application that you download from the Internet. Once downloaded, you no longer need the Internet to run it.

I am not sure if I can adequately describe the simplicity and coolness of this little application. It has more than 25 little tools that you can work with. Some are super simple, like a scoreboard for your classroom games. Others are more involved. Type in a list of words that the kids can click and move around, then choose one of 42 different backgrounds to use. You could do a venn diagram for example and have the kids sort the words.

You can make your own lists. Of students. Of vocabulary. You can use that list in some of the tools, like the spinner that chooses one at random. Can anyone say Kagan? There is also a text spinner you can create yourself. There is a timer. You get the idea. Check it out. It's nifty.

Click here to get the application. 

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