NIS Learning Curve

NewsFeed Defenders Gameplay

2021-09-19T05:36:00.020-07:00

Subjects & Skills -

English Language Arts, Social Studies, Global perspectives, Critical Thinking

Learning objectives -

Identify markers of verification, transparency, accountability, and independence in news stories.
Define and identify problematic news items, and other news-related types of misinformation.
Explain a variety of strategies to verify images and information.
Evaluate text for bias based on word choices and framing methods.
Use third-party information to judge the credibility of a source.

Learning Outcomes achieved -

Learn tactics to spot fake news, investigate bad reporting, and off-topic stories.

Use independent sources to verify news facts and sources, evaluate articles for bias.

NewsFeed Defenders is a free social media and news literacy simulation that helps students understand the essential qualities of good journalism, how news goes viral, and common tactics employed in news to deceive or manipulate reads and disregard disinformation and misinformation on the web — resist clickbait, viral rumours, and biased sources. It is a protected, appropriate environment for students of a variety of ages and maturity levels to get them familiar with some of the key aspects of good journalism. There might not be a natural place to put it in your curriculum, but you need to carve out some time to discuss it. The articles on the site could turn out to be great fodder to introduce media literacy in a language or Global perspective class if you’re going to be discussing current events or having your students conduct online research.

To learn these things, students are added as guests on a fictional social news site called Newsably. They get to choose a topic of their interest to have articles related to their choice be displayed on their version of Newsably (Student Life, Health & Wellness, or Sports & Entertainment).

Students start off with a minimal role as guest users, over time gaining responsibilities and levelling up to site administrator.

As they level up, they gain more control over the site environment, such as adding new posts, choosing featured posts, commenting, and approving or reporting posts. Along the way, students work to spot ads that masquerade as news articles, dubious sources and facts, misleading posts and one-sided opinion pieces. Students can also add positive comments to a post to encourage more posts of that type or add negative comments to decrease posts.

From there, the gameplay largely revolves around the screen above. It represents the website, and you can see the feed of stories that appear on the righthand side. Your job is to investigate them and decide whether they should remain on the site.

The ultimate goal is to increase the integrity, traffic, and focus of the site over a 14-day period. To do so, students must follow the site's five rules (accuracy, transparency, trustworthiness, impartiality, and focus) and make sure all posts abide by these rules.

When you click on a story, you’ll see a title, an author, a source, and a little blurb that summarizes the story. Students investigate the credibility of posts and report any that don't abide by the rules; students must then declare which rules the posts break.

Since students can lose points if they report incorrectly, they quickly learn to investigate posts before passing judgment. Once you flag it, you’ll see a response from the administrator and you’ll be scored on whether or not you correctly identified the reasons that it was inappropriate.

Each action taken uses up a certain amount of time for the current day, so students must choose their actions carefully to be efficient. Since they must spend their in-game time efficiently, students learn to choose the most effective investigative paths to take. Once they max out their integrity, however, students can either choose to end the game or keep playing.

Students' websites would have three ratings – integrity, traffic, and focus. The actions they take throughout the game impact these ratings.

Support for teachers -

The site provides plenty of teacher resources to get acquainted with the game rules and environment (check out the Game Guide). The Teacher's Guide includes tips on preparation, activities to orient you and your class, a mini-lesson, a follow-up activity, and an assessment, as well as links to external resources that can help you teach your students to use critical thinking skills to spot fake news and misinformation. Learners can be given timely reminders about articles that may be completely legitimate, but if they don't fit the topic of the site, their presence will bring the metrics down.

When students finish the game, they are shown all of their game data and can print out a certificate. This summarizes everything they did, provides their final rating, and grades the accuracy of their reporting. There’s also an expansion pack available, with student handouts and a Powerpoint slide deck.

Technology teachers can extend learning by having students reflect on their own relationship with social media and the news. Talk to students about how they use social media and what kind of role it has in their lives. The activity would help them identify the authentic sources from where to get their news, and what factors to consider to decide its genuineness (check out this toolkit).

NewsFeed Defenders includes the following classroom supports to make it a powerful teaching tool:

Game Guide that includes instructions, tricks and tips, discussion prompts, and activity ideas for the classroom
An Extension Pack with a step-by-step slide deck that sandwiches the game between learning activities
Three lessons/mini-lessons that cover the real-world issues of algorithms, privacy policies, and opinion/analysis in the news

Newsfeed Defenders is a good way to jump-start news literacy conversations in a classroom, but it should be supplemented with the real-world investigation. The site does a fairly good job of modelling good and bad practices for consuming information on social media.

This video shows basic gameplay during the first couple of days.

Web Source Credit:-

https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/newsfeed-defenders

What makes an excellent online teacher?

2021-04-17T22:21:00.002-07:00

Excellent online teaching isn’t based on the ability to navigate a Zoom room or create a Google doc. Excellent teaching happens through teacher decision-making — how teachers decide to respond to and engage with students, select curriculum materials, organize learning and use communication strategies. In this session, we explore how teacher decisions in both planning and practice impact student learning in the online environment.

~ Dr Rhona Bondie

Over the last year, schools have faced significant challenges to effective teaching and learning. Sometimes with no notice, teachers have had to teach their classes fully or partly online. And they have met that challenge with professionalism, creativity and skill. As a result, the whole teaching and learning community has learnt so much more about remote learning.

Cambridge International has organised a schools conference through a series of programmes, where we will hear from academics and consultants and the teachers and school leaders who have been at the forefront of developing new pedagogies for teaching and learning. This will include how we can make the best use of technology but will set this in a wider context of remote learning for schools. We will discuss ideas together, and consider what this means for education once the pandemic is over.

As part of CSC online 2021, watch Dr Rhonda Bondie explore how teacher decisions in both planning and practice impact student learning in the online environment.

Classcraft – Gamify your lessons in the new era of teaching

2021-01-06T19:00:00.001-08:00

Children love games and stories, and what better way to engage your teen to be more responsible for their learning than a game-based approach to learning? A little excitement and competition can motivate learners to engage with what they are working on.

Classcraft is an online fantasy-themed behaviour- and learning-management role-playing game (also available as Chrome, Android, and iOS apps). It's cool graphics and avatars make this a hit with grade 6 and up.

When it comes to content delivery, Classcraft is built around narrative “quests” which move students through a storyline, while at the same time asking them to complete various activities, challenges, and/or lessons. Teacher-created Quests can be a unique way to immerse students in learning or reviewing concepts, and teachers may find they're worth the extra setup time. It makes things very interactive, you could start the class with events, and use that as a warm-up activity, and present quizzes like battles. Note that some of these features are available only with a paid account.

It truly simulates a game layout and experience for those seeking to add elements of gamification to their classroom as well as mirror gaming experiences. There’s an option for students to choose their avatars/personas and enhance/upgrade their characters as they gain experience from completing classroom activities/homework/projects/tests, etc. There are even options to have random "daily events" take place that affect the students.

The goal of Classcraft is to build positive classroom culture and transform normal lessons into narrative-based quests where each student has an important role and voice. It’s a wonderful tool that integrates well with other Edtech products like Google classroom. For example, you could embed a Flipgrid into your quest, or a Quizziz, or a Kahoot, or Quizlet flashcards, or even just a Google doc or slideshow. Everything you’re already using can still be used, Classcraft just adds a gamified level above everything and creates an environment where students must collaborate as a team to reach their goal. Teachers can use already existing quests, create their own from scratch, or check out the quest marketplace to download free quests other teachers have created.

Classcraft is meant to operate as a layer on top of all your normal classroom lessons and activities. It’s also meant to be team-based so that students will work collaboratively as they move through lessons and “quests.” They excel in class not just academically but also supporting fellow students’ learning. It radically changes your students’ relationship with the content and with each other by using games to which children naturally gravitate.

They earn experience points (powers) within the Classcraft system which can be converted to real-world benefits that students can use in class, and they are also completely customizable should teachers want to change things up.

Finally, at the admin level, Classcraft provides a wide range of statistics and analytics. These analytics include things that most platforms offer - attendance, login data, usage reports, etc. But they also include analytics on school climate and student engagement. These can both be helpful metrics for gaining a more holistic understanding of where students are at in terms of competencies that don’t always get measured.

How Classcraft works

Once a student earns enough experience points, they can level up and purchase a new power. In addition to experience points, students also have health points (HPs). These are what allow students to stay “active” in the game. If they lose all their HPs as a result of negative actions (being off-task, bullying, etc.), they “fall in battle” and there is a consequence for them and their team.

Students also have action points (APs) and these are what determine how often students can use the powers they’ve earned.

Finally, there are gold pieces (GPs). Students earn GPs automatically when they level up. GPs can be used to buy things like new outfits or clothing for their avatar.

Students pick (or are assigned) one of three character types - Mage, Guardian or Healer. As mentioned above, Classcraft is meant to be team-based, and within each team, you have to have one of each character type. Every character has a specific power to offer and has a key role to play in the story. This helps to make sure that every student has an important role within the team so that everyone has value.

By using a character class system, delivering classroom experiences that put collective experiences at the forefront, and making winning a team experience, Classcraft redefines the social dynamic in the classroom.

How can you teach with this tool?

Instead of trying to do "group work" with students, you can use Classcraft to allow students to work together for a common purpose without affecting their grades. Kids love when they can dress up their characters and read the storylines to follow along with the classwork. The platform keeps track of when XP and Gold are added and when HP is taken away. This helps keep track of what students are doing on a daily basis and where they can make improvements.

Benefits for learning –

To make it even easier for teachers to use quests, Classcraft recently launched Story Mode, an episodic adventure that helps teachers engage and motivate students through storytelling. Story Mode offers teachers ready-made stories to help them improve student engagement, foster a positive school climate, and promote social-emotional learning.

While students are working through quests, there are also “class tools” that the teacher can use. These are things like a random student picker, a timer, a volume meter, and even a “boss battle” which acts as a formative review.

By putting students into teams where success is contingent upon cooperation, Classcraft puts a new spin on traditionally individualized behaviour management.

Features such as the Makus Valley for noise control and Boss Battles for formative assessment keep students on their toes and accountable to their teams, while the Quests allow teachers to differentiate instruction by modifying complexity and allowing students to move at their own pace.

Drawbacks – (quotes by experienced users)

"It was slow to use and hard to use for students, and the mobile website is terrible."

"This is simply set it and let it do everything. The teacher still needs to leave feedback, apply damage, use events, applying experience points, and more."

"Limited maps...loses appeal to kids when more than one teacher uses the same maps for different curriculum."

"Plus, my students really wanted the premium features, so I had to pay, and it is not cheap. A couple of my students were not allowed to participate due to the magic element."

“A lot of moving parts for the teacher to manage. This is not simply set it and let it do everything. "The teacher still needs to leave feedback, apply damage, use events, applying experience points, and more. But this is something to keep in mind as it can be daunting."

"Maybe if there was a way to make this a little more efficient and automated?”

“It is a lot to keep up with as a teacher and sometimes feels like it is too time-consuming in the classroom.”

“For those unfamiliar with role-playing games, this might seem like a lot to take in.”

Web source & media credits –

https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/classcraft

http://www.edtechroundup.org/reviews/classcraft-engagement-management-system-fork-

12-classrooms

REINVENT DIGITAL WORKSHEETS WITH WIZER THAT DIFFERENTIATE INSTRUCTION

2020-12-20T10:49:00.004-08:00

Wizer can be a great tool for teachers who want to quickly assess understanding of specific concepts. Using Wizer teachers can create meaningful, engaging learning experiences for their students with augmented worksheets. Multiple activities can be embedded in one place giving students options for visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic learning modalities. Students can label images, categorize information, respond to open-ended and multiple-choice questions, or respond to video content.

Teachers will have to sign up for an account, to start browsing or creating worksheets. Once logged in, you can choose a template and then add a title along with written and/or voice-recorded instructions (for paid versions) and create their questions based on videos, images, charts, tables, and more. Students can worksheets assigned to them on computers or mobile devices via LMS logins (Google classroom, Edmodo, Microsoft), a class code, or a link to a URL or teachers can also embed the worksheet onto their blogs for students to solve.

Students can be given a choice of response format, such as verbal, written, or drawn. Teachers can then score the open-ended questions and review the objective ones. They can also mark favourite answers, provide written or verbal feedback, and see how long the student took to submit the assignment. The site also gives an option to the teachers to make the answers/feedback available to students immediately upon submission of worksheet.

Improve your instructions by creating digital assignments that promote engagement, creativity, and critical thinking. You can create your whole lesson within the Wizer.me environment including learning objectives, videos, links to other web resources and formative and summative assessments.

Benefits

Flip the classroom by following videos with open response questions to be discussed in class.
Teachers can gain valuable insight into student effort and achievement by checking how much time students spend on assignments.
Reduce your workload by using and modifying worksheets available in the community of Wizer users.
Not only can you ask the basic true/false, multiple-choice, fill in the blank kinds of questions, but you can also create sorting and sequencing activities.
Questions will be automatically graded, saving teachers valuable time.
Easy to see how well students did - see a list of student names and their scores on the worksheet, then go into individual worksheets and see a specific student's work if necessary.
There are questions that allow for more variation than just right/wrong - they have short answer questions and drawing questions! The drawing questions especially can be fun :) (Keep in mind, for these questions, students do not receive points until you manually go in and score it.)
You can leave feedback on each individual activity.
Looks great! They are visually very appealing.
There's a Wizer Me community, so you can easily share your worksheets with other teachers AND find ones that others are using!
One of its better features is the option to add questions directly on top of images and diagrams.
Wizer Now Offers a Google Drive Add-on. The Google Drive add-on should make it easier for those who already have PDF worksheets stored in Google Drive to create online activities for their students to complete.

Paid benefits

English language learners or students with disabilities will find voice recorded directions along with written ones very useful.
The paid version of Wizer allows students to customize their profile by adding strengths, passions, preferences, and challenges, and teachers can use this information to form groups, personalize assignments, and create differentiation rules.
Schedule and time the whole worksheet or “test” if you choose to give summative assessments in Wizer.
Connecting to your Google Classroom requires a paid account (along with other features), however you can post worksheet links on Google classroom through Wizer.
If you don't have a paid account, your worksheets are automatically made public to everyone once you assign them to teachers. Keep track of your copyrights!

Tutorial Videos

Links to some other subjects’ worksheets

Cells and their organelles - https://app.wizer.me/preview/6AYJH

Spanish Regular present tense - https://app.wizer.me/preview/1MBR7J

Periodic Table: Metals, Nonmetals, & Metalloids - https://app.wizer.me/preview/78KL4P

Prepositional Phrases - https://app.wizer.me/preview/MQV3N3

Causes of the American Revolution - https://app.wizer.me/preview/NTMT54

Plate Tectonics - https://app.wizer.me/preview/WFB5I4

Integers and Graphing - https://app.wizer.me/preview/MBV3UG

Newtons Laws of Motions - https://app.wizer.me/preview/KPN2BJ

Design Thinking - https://app.wizer.me/preview/TLVIRL

Gmail: Project 1 Creating and Sending An Email - https://app.wizer.me/preview/U1QJFL

Weathering, Erosion and Deposition Worksheet Example

How to work with Wizer.me (pdf document)

Credits

https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/wizer

https://www.teachersfirst.com/single.cfm?id=16974

https://www.coolcatteacher.com/how-to-use-wizer-to-create-digital-worksheets-that-differentiate-instruction/

Create interactive learning resources with H5P⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

2020-11-23T19:28:00.000-08:00

Online ‘interactives' are becoming commonplace in higher education as a way of presenting Blended Active Learning experiences, and the advent of easy-to-use tools means that you don't have to be an experienced multimedia designer to create content. Teachers and learners are now able to design and develop their own activities, and HP5 is the ideal authoring tool for this type of content.

H5P( HTML 5 Package) has some great tools to make your content pages more interactive. The platform empowers everyone to create, share and reuse interactive content - all you need is a web browser and a web site that supports H5P (for example Google sites/ Blogger / Weebly, WordPress, Moodle etc). You can see a few examples at the end of this article.

H5P was created for teachers to use, to make online courses more interactive and engaging for students. In all, there are 40 types of interactive content available to create on H5P, with the “featured” tools being for course presentations, interactive videos, and memory games.

As well as helping you to design engaging content, H5P enables you to build in interactions to engage students in more active learning approaches online. You can create rich and interactive multimedia for learning from a range of content types hosted on the website for various needs. Preview and explore these content types on this link. Select the type for your content and simply add the H5P embed code on to your blog/website page. Each H5P content type is simply a collection of HTML, CSS and Javascript files zipped together. This means interactive content can be shared between a huge range of websites and platforms.

Thousands of schools, colleges, enterprises and other organisations use H5P to deliver interactive learning experiences. H5P empowers instructors to create richer and better experiences by adding gamification, interactivity and rich multimedia into an online course. It can take your online teaching to the next level and it is suitable for both teachers and students, making authoring rich educational content an easy task, without the need for complicated and expensive authoring tools. Using both H5P and Google Sites/Blogger, you can create a unique and engaging e-course, that will keep your students coming back for more!

Let’s say you want to present the history of strawberries. With H5P, you may list historic events in chronological order on a page, and add some images and videos to it as well, or you may take it one step further and create a visual timeline that the user can click on and easily get an overview of the historical moments, navigating between the events freely.

The best thing about H5P is that is free and open source. It is open-source, which means that H5P is free to use and continually being updated by a community of developers. It’s easy to use and very intuitive. They have tutorials on their site for beginners which could be helpful for someone who is starting to test this amazing framework. The tools are very user friendly, self-explanatory and completely customisable! There are a lot of options including YouTube integration, and other sources. The content types are responsive, touch-friendly, and generally have a nice clean look to them.

H5P is coded in HTML but does not require the user to have a definite knowledge of the coding language. The backend interface lets you drag and drop elements or directly add interactive buttons to the video. Constantly evolving, there are always new features on the block waiting for you.

The plugin includes a ton of questionnaire types and informative text boxes for you to choose from. You can choose questions like Fill in the Blanks, Guess the answer, True or False, Mark the Words, Audio Q&A, course presentation, interactive video, chart, dialogue cards, arithmetic quiz, drag and drop, multiple choice, memory game and more. You can see all the content types here: H5P Content Types.

It allows you to create simple games and flashcards to boost analytic and memorizing skills of the audience. Course Presentations and slide-shows can be prepared- complete with effects and animated text.

Without the need for a development team or designers, anyone can create interactions such as:

Whether used as enrichment or to test learning and recall of information, interactive exercises, quizzes, and games make eLearning more engaging and effective.

Tutorials are available for some of the activities here

Youtube tutorial - H5P Embedded into Google Sites

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDMY4ArtUsQ

H5P Examples

Here are a few examples of an H5P drag and drop content type, using the H5P Content embed code. After creating the example using the plugin, I was provided with a shortcode that I added to this page. A shortcode is a quick way to add functionality to a blog page without programming.

Dictation

Dialogue cards

Simple drag and drop

Drag the words

Essay

Fill in the blanks

Find multiple hotspots

Find the hotspot

Find the words

Juxtaposition

Image pairing

Image sequencing

Interactive book

Speak the words

Speak the word set

Summary

Timeline

Virtual Tour (360)

Course presentation

Advanced Fill in the blanks

IS#13: CLAIM, EVIDENCE, REASONING (CER)

2020-11-06T15:18:00.001-08:00

Instructional Strategy#13: Claim, Evidence, Reasoning (CER)

This strategy provides a scaffolded way for students to use evidence to formulate and justify their own arguments by breaking down materials and research into smaller pieces for analysis.

(Click on the images to enlarge)

McNeill, K. L., & Krajcik, J. (2008). Inquiry and scientific explanations: Helping students use evidence and reasoning. In J. Luft, R. L. Bell, and J. Guess-Newsome (Eds.) Science as Inquiry in the Secondary Setting. Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.

Happy Learning!

IS#12: Create the Problem

2020-11-06T14:58:00.001-08:00

Instructional Strategy#12: Create the Problem

This mathematics-focused instructional activity has students create a hypothetical problem that matches a given real-world solution.

(Click on the images to enlarge)

Keeley, P., & Tobey, C. (2011). #11. Create the problem. In Mathematics Formative Assessment: 75 Practical Strategies for Linking Assessment, Instruction, and Learning (p. 80). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, SAGE.

Happy Learning!

Desmos - Beautiful, powerful, free Math exploration!

2020-11-05T08:31:00.016-08:00

If you are looking for a part calculator, part interactive simulation tool, Desmos is a standout example of inquiry-driven math tool with super-smart instructional supports. Desmos is an easy-to-use tool that gives students a visual way to understand expressions. It is a Graphing Calculator app that provides features beyond those of a regular calculator, allowing users to graph functions, create tables, simulations and more.

The site boasts a huge collection of activities in accordance with IGCSE and AS/A level requirements. The tool is free and is available on the web as well as on iOS and Android. In addition to plotting equations, classroom activities are available to help students learn about a variety of math concepts. For example, students can learn how to transform periodic functions by trying to slide marbles through points on a graph. Or they can plug in their own equation and see what kind of graph pops up; sliders allow students to adjust values and see what happens. Users can also click directly on the graph to find the coordinates of points of intersection, maxima, and minima.

Desmos encourages students to practice math skills as well as play with math to express their creativity. Kids can enter an unlimited number of mathematical expressions and instantly see results graphed on the page. A variety of colours and features make it possible to turn graphs into complex and realistic drawings. With a free Desmos account, students and teachers can save graphs to revisit later.

How can you use this tool?

Desmos can be used in a range of different ways. It can be used as a free graphing calculator, saving students from purchasing a $100 calculator. Teachers can use it to make high-quality images for assessments and presentations. But the classroom activities are where Desmos really stands out. Teachers can use Desmos to help students connect mathematical concepts to concrete, real-world shapes and pictures. Starting an activity with your students is easy: Simply have the kids enter the activity code into the website. Prior to assigning an activity, try the student preview.

Teacher moves are listed at the bottom of activities, giving specific ways you can coach your kids while they're working. Progress can be monitored using the teacher dashboard. Using this information, teachers can work specifically with students one at a time or pause the whole class if most are headed down the wrong path. Use the Snapshot tool to capture specific student responses and sequence them in the best order to drive the class conversation.

Perseverance is encouraged since kids can adjust and try again if the graph doesn't look quite right. Desmos empowers students to collaborate with each other. Students can ask each other questions and try out challenges created by their peers.

Several features make Desmos a standout graphing option for students with varying math skills. Beginners benefit from the ability to use sliders as substitutes for undefined variables. This way, kids can actually watch the graph move and change shape as they click and drag the variable up and down. A feature that may appeal to more advanced users is the ability to graph tables and inequalities. Tables can be pre-populated with expressions or entered manually, and they let students graph groups of numbers at the same time.

Why students particularly prefer this tool?

Students can work on a problem on the calculator, save their work, and share it with others. Work can even be embedded on a blog or shared via a bit.ly link. One of the most powerful elements of Desmos is that it creates the graph as you type numbers into the program. If you make a change to a number, the graph is quickly redrawn. Students can make these changes and see the impact of these changes in real time. This immediate feedback on how a graph changes is a very powerful way for students to learn about math. The uses of Desmos are unlimited in the math class.

Students are able to use pre-created graphs to explore topics such as linear functions, slope, quadratic functions, trigonometric functions, conic sections, transformations, derivatives, and many more. These pre-created graphs allow students to play with the standard form of each given function or concept. Through the slider animations, students are able to change certain values to see how it affects the graph itself. For example, when exploring slope-intercept form students can adjust the slope from -10 to +10 and see right on the graph what the change in slope does to the line.

The statistics features of the app gives users the power to find lines of best-fit, parabolas, and more for a set of data points. With the calculus feature, users can graph derivatives, build secant and tangent lines, and more. Users can interact with the graph by touching points to show intersections, curve maximums, and curve minimums. Through student discovery and exploration using this tool, conceptual understanding will become deeper. The whole app can function offline as well, so users do not need internet access to make use of the powerful features.

Desmos does not provide step-by-step instructions on the pre-created graphs to tell students what they should be looking for as they change a given value. At the same time, this could be very empowering for a student who likes to work at his own pace. Students have full control of the website once the calculator is open. Students are able to enter their own functions on a blank graph or play with a pre-created graph. Students can easily create a graph using Desmos, interactive or non-interactive. This can be used to assess students’ understanding of a graphing concept such as the y-intercept on a linear function. This can also be used as either an individual or group activity. Students can create graphs to share with each other or work together to create a graph (although they would need to do it together on one computer). This website will help students value their own thinking and learning process because it will allow them to discover new mathematical concepts on their own and allow them to explain it to others through the creation of graphs.

Classroom Usage:-

Desmos could be used individually, as pairs, as groups, or full class (most likely on the projector), although it would be most successful with individual or pairs since it can only be completed on one computer. This fits very closely into many middle school and high school mathematics classes since there are many examples of different functions that are introduced in Algebra through Calculus available on the calculator and website.

Overall Impression:-

Overall Desmos is a great tool for a middle school or high school mathematics classroom. The website and calculator have many strengths: it is easy to use, it is easy to navigate, it provides great pre-created graphs, and can be used for a variety of graphing activities. The graphs can be made interactive to allow for student discovery. It is available in multiple languages and is, therefore, accessible for many different students. One highlight is that students are able to share their graphs in multiple ways. This is a great way to use the tool for assessment because students can simply email their graph to the teacher. The calculator allows students to discover new mathematical concepts related to graphs and functions independently.

Directions for Use

In order to utilize these activities in their classrooms, teachers will need to login to teacher.desmos.com by using an existing Google account or by creating their own Desmos Classroom Activities account. Activities from these logs can be saved to their accounts where they can use the activity as-is or copy and edit the activity to suit their needs. Teachers also can create codes for their classes to be able to use many built-in features such as the teacher dashboard and classroom conversations. Refer to Desmos Classroom Activities for detailed information about features and use.

Desmos Classroom Activities

An additional component within desmos includes a bank of Desmos Classroom Activities that allow students to collaborate and provide feedback in mathematics classrooms. Teachers can modify or create their own activities.

▪ Learn Desmos: Classroom Activities

▪ Learn Desmos: Create Your Own Activity

Desmos Art

To find the beauty in mathematics, many students are creating art using the Desmos graphing calculator. Math and creative art examples are available.

▪ Math Examples

▪ Creative Art Examples

Intro video

Direct source -

https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/desmos

http://ed570-14.weebly.com/review-1---desmos.html

PlayPosit – Interactive video creator with a variety of question format

2020-10-19T01:13:00.002-07:00

Great for -

Assessment, Formative Assessment, Presentation, Flip classroom, Classroom Management, Instructional Strategies, Differentiate instructions

Have you wondered if your students are actually watching the videos you assign?

PlayPosit can provide the answer. Use PlayPosit to embed quiz-type questions, facts, or links to websites in a video you create or a video you find from on site library or sources such as YouTube, TEDx, Vimeo, Khan Academy, and other popular video platforms. From inside Canvas, instructors can create an assignment that requires students to interact with the video they watch. PlayPosit also includes analytics, so instructors can see how students respond to questions. Instructors can even assign students the task of creating an interactive video. Data can then be analyzed on the individual or group level, providing powerful insight into educational trends in the classroom.

Using video effectively in the classroom requires switching students from passive to active viewers. Often teachers will have students take notes while they watch, or pause videos and ask questions and spark discussions. PlayPosit offers a platform for weaving these teaching strategies into the videos themselves. Stop bulbs to add various questions, polls, discussion prompts and so on.

It is an interactive visual web-based video learning tool that allows educators to build lessons into videos so that students can learn while viewing a video. The platform lets educators take formative assessment both inside and outside the classroom. Instructors can add quizzes or texts lessons to help facilitate learning during the course of a video. The goal with Playposit, is to have students learn at their own pace in a fully online setting.

Getting started :-

Begin with any online video and transform what is traditionally passive content into an active experience for students, with time-embedded activities.

The tool lets you create interactive video lessons called "bulbs".

find, upload or create a video (YouTube, Vimeo and more)
stop the video at different points and insert your questions, audio, text, images and links
Share the link to your video lesson
review student participation and answers to your questions
After you create an ID, you can access one of the 300,000 free public interactive videos

The simple interface is limited to three options: Video Segments, Interactions, and Review. Using those tabs, users can combine and crop videos, include closed captions, and add interactions, including polls, multiple-choice questions, pauses for discussion, and written responses with optional feedback.

Teachers strapped for time can also perform a filtered search through thousands of premade bulbs, copy them onto their dashboard, and edit as desired.

Teachers can tweak videos with some useful affordances for students, including whether they can rewind, fast-forward, skip interactions, or redo the bulb.

The free version features unlimited bulbs but only 100 learner attempts at bulbs per month.

Tweak settings on bulb to customize student experience

Overview -

PlayPosit 3.0 Getting Started Guide

Video Tutorials

Example of a PlayPosit video

https://app.playpos.it/player_v2?type=share&bulb_id=957197&lms_launch=false

Features

♣ Sync videos from popular platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, etc.

♣ Add interactive questions and rich media into the video’s timeline to actively engage on mobile or web devices.

♣ Embed videos directly into Learning Management Systems (LMS). LTI/API integration with Edmodo, Schoology, Moodle, Blackboard, Google, and others permit seamless utilization.

♣ Monitor all student video engagement through a central dashboard

♣ Play Posit provides a URL for sharing their video manually and the code for embedding it on a webpage.

♣ Learner responses are graded and displayed in real-time to ensure a tight feedback loop

How can you teach with this tool?

Create PlayPosit videos for use in your flipped classroom or for differentiating instruction in any subject.

Monitor student usage and progress using the site's tools. Use this tool to enhance learning by allowing students to create their own videos to review classroom material.

Pause a video about climate change to ask students not only to recall key facts but to answer a poll question, or to provide an in-depth response about the benefits and drawbacks of renewable energy.

Interactive worksheets - Liveworksheets.com

2020-10-04T20:48:00.000-07:00

Liveworksheets.com is an educational tool which allows teachers to transform their traditional printable worksheets (in format .doc, pdf, .png or .jpg) into interactive online exercises with self-correction. These interactive worksheets may include fill-in-the-gaps activities, join with arrows, multiple-choice, drag and drop, sounds, videos, listening exercises and even speaking exercises.

The site gives an option to create an interactive workbook system, where workbooks can be assigned to one or more students at a time and are organised by class/level. Since the Live Worksheets are interactive worksheets they help save paper, ink, and time, and are fun to complete. Teachers create an account to upload worksheet pdfs, then drag text entry boxes on top of the worksheet. The student then enters the answers online. Questions can be fill in the blank, multiple-choice, matching, drag and drop, join with arrows, recording audio, word search, and more, with new activities frequently added. The teacher enters correct answers when they create the text boxes, which the program uses to give students instant feedback (correct answers are green and incorrect answers are red) with a total score for the worksheet visible for each student.

You can make up to 10 workbooks and add 120 pages to each workbook. The workbooks can be assigned to a maximum of 100 students. When a new school term begins, you don’t have to add the worksheets again. Just change the group of the students and assign them the same workbook(s) of previous batch members. You can edit the workbooks at any moment: add or remove pages, change the order, edit the exercises, etc. Teachers may enable the option “repeat exercise”, allowing students to repeat the worksheets and improve their grades.

Teachers may also choose the way that grades are shown to the students (numbers with decimals, numbers without decimals, custom text, custom images, don’t show grades…). You just need one click to see all your learners' results and arrange them by level or date.

Liveworksheets are free and can be shared with other teachers, too. Create interactive exercises or consult the thousands of exercises that are already available. Especially language learning skills (English and French) can be developed with a lot of fun with already existing exercises.

You can also upload your own worksheets and make them interactive following some simple steps. There is a tutorial page as well as a video tutorial:

FAQs

Can I make open-answer exercises? Yes, you can. Just add a blank text box in your worksheet. (Of course, auto-correction will not work in this case.)

Can comments be added to the worksheet?

Although most of the worksheets include self-correction, you can also change the marks or add notes on the learners' notebooks.

Can individual learner needs be met? How can I achieve differentiation?

You can add the same worksheets to all your learners' workbooks OR choose the most suitable for each student.

What about sharing worksheets with other teachers?

Although it is meant to serve as a community resource, you can choose to keep your worksheets private (Only your learners can see them). There is a limit of 30 private worksheets.

How can I get my students' answers?

There are two ways:

The simplest one: The students open the worksheet, do the exercises and click "Finish". Then they choose "Send my answers to the teacher" and enter your email (or secret keycode). Then you'll get a notification in your email, and you can check all your students' answers in your mailbox. There is no limit on the number of worksheets that your students can send to you, but all their answers will be deleted after 30 days.

A lengthier, but much better option: You can make your own interactive workbooks, and add your favourite worksheets (your own ones or shared by other teachers). Then you have to register your students (they can also register themselves with your secret keycode) and assign them the workbooks. After that, the students can open the workbooks with their username and password and do the exercises. You can check their work at any time, assign homework and add comments or notes. Students may optionally register their email to get notifications of their homework and teacher's comments. Interactive workbooks are highly customizable, allow teachers' feedback and save all your students' answers for an unlimited time.

Can I download the worksheets as pdf?

Many of the worksheets are also downloadable as pdf (if the author allowed this option). You can download 10 worksheets per day.

IS#11: Annotating Text

2020-09-30T19:30:00.002-07:00

Instructional Strategy#11: Annotating Text

Annotating text is a strategy that engages students in close reading to build their vocabulary and reading comprehension. Students identify difficult or confusing passages within a text and then seek to explain them.

(Click on the images to enlarge)

Blow, M. (2016). Engage readers and increase comprehension: Annotate text. Retrieved from https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/mary-blow/engage-readers-and-increase-comprehension-annotate-text/

Happy Learning!

IS#10_Crosscutting Cards

2020-09-23T18:36:00.002-07:00

Instructional Strategy#10: Crosscutting Cards

Each subject has skills and processes that should happen, no matter the grade or content standard. This strategy helps students understand the connection between those processes and their learning.

(Click on the images to enlarge)

Happy Learning!

Create learning/teaching apps with Learningapps.org

2020-09-20T21:15:00.006-07:00

LearningApps.org is a web application, to support learning and teaching processes with small interactive modules. It is a website that gives the teachers an opportunity to create their own simple applications (apps). Teachers can create more than 20 types of apps, for example, memory game, word search, hangman or crossword. What’s more, after you register you can create classes for students and monitor their progress. The modules can be used as a part of the lesson, it can not only be used directly in learning materials, but also for self-studying. The aim is to collect reusable building blocks and make them available to everyone. Blocks (called Apps) include no specific framework or a specific learning scenario. The blocks are therefore not suitable as complete lessons or tasks, instead, they must be embedded in an appropriate teaching scenario.

Learners can benefit from a wide variety of learning apps to improve their knowledge about many different topics in a game-like way. However, teachers should keep in mind that anyone can create a learning app. Thus, the quality and content of the app may vary and should be checked prior to using it in class.

Furthermore, teachers can create their own “classroom” and save apps on-site specifically for their group of learners. Once the learners are enrolled in the classroom, they can each access it with their own personalized password generated by the website. Teachers can also see which apps the learners have used and in some cases, they also get an overview of the number of correct answers.

Using the existing apps does not require registration. To create a classroom, however, teachers have to register on the website. In order for the learners to access their own classroom, teachers have to register all learners in the classroom and the learners will have to log in.

You can create your own activities from scratch using one of the templates provided or you can adapt activities already created. Enter a keyword or choose a category to explore (browse by category/media/ learning level) and, when you find an activity you like, you can ‘Create a similar app’ with your own ideas and then share it with your learners. Practice tasks can be made in minutes and you can use them again by saving them in your account - creating an account is free!

Language learning content.

There is a range of templates for simple language or skills-focused activities. There are games and quizzes such as matching, identifying, categorising, gap-filling, crosswords, filling in answers, ordering, putting things on a line and multiple-choice tasks. You can also upload self-made or authentic texts, pictures, audio or video when creating or adapting activities. There’s a feature for typing in text to create audio content – helpful if you want to provide learners with models for pronunciation. Feedback and hints can be added to help learners to get the right answers and to understand why their answer is right or wrong. LearningApps.org activities can be used with all levels of learners. You can create, for example, a simple matching words and pictures activity for low-level learners or devise a more complex formal versus informal letter writing task for more proficient learners. LearningApps.org activities can be used or created to practise vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation. You and your learners can also create activities to practise listening or reading comprehension or to learn or practise the functional language for speaking or writing. There are a number of ready-made MFL activities which can be used as they are or adapted for a particular group of learners. For example, there are short videos on a variety of topics. Learners watch and complete pre, while and post watching tasks which check their understanding.

Social interaction.

Tasks can be completed individually and then shared or they can be done in pairs or groups in class or at home. Some LearningApps.org activities also have chat boxes where learners and teachers can add comments during games and there are some more sophisticated competitive tasks, which learners can play in groups to compete with each other. As well as interacting with each other to do the activities, learners enjoy working with each other to create activities for their classmates to do. They can collaborate on choosing the task type, finding suitable materials and thinking of hints and feedback.

Website highlights

Can choose from ready-made tasks or create your own, wide variety of topics and exercises
It’s possible to use a variety of sources to create tasks – video, audio, text, pictures.
It’s free.
Incredibly easy to use.
Lots of different task types.
Learners can complete tasks on their own or in groups.
There’s a chat function on some tasks.
Can be used with all ages and all levels of learner.
Teachers and learners can create an account to store the tasks they have created or adapted.

Watch the tutorial video here –

Learningapps guide.pdf - http://www.mobile-tech.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/4.2.4_LearningApp.pdf

Web source credits

https://thedigitalteacher.com/reviews/learningapps#overview

https://micool.org/blog/2017/03/10/learningapps-org/

http://dmcit.org/wp/?p=85

http://tools.mall-guide.eu/product/learningapps/

https://thedigitalteacher.com/reviews/learningapps

IS#9_CHOICE BOARDS

2020-09-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

Instructional Strategy#9: CHOICE BOARDS

Choice Boards are an accessible and customizable way to bring differentiated instruction into any classroom. Themed activity grids can be designed with activities of varying difficulty levels and point values for students to choose from. They allow students' personal interests and preferences to be stimulated for greater engagement and active learning.

Sample Template for Choice Boards

(Click on the images to enlarge)

Happy Learning!

Transform Google Sheets into Amazing Activities with Flippity

2020-09-07T21:39:00.012-07:00

Educational games can be a fun way to engage students while also teaching or reviewing subject area content. These can include activities such as word searches, crossword puzzles, bingo games, flashcards, Jeopardy games, and more. When teachers use game-based learning (GBL) they can enhance the learning experience of the students. Gamification is applying game process and game design techniques to engage and motivate students to achieve their goals. Using Gamification is a great way for teachers to use Formative Assessment in the classroom.

There are lots of tools online that can be used to create such activities. One creative option is to use Google Sheets templates from Flippity. This is a free website that provides a wide range of templates that you can download, fill in with your own content, and then play online through the Flippity site. Flippity easily turns any Google spreadsheet into flashcards, a badge creator, a spelling quiz, a memory game, a word search, and more. Teachers can use Flippity for a variety of purposes: to present to the class, to assess individual students, or to have students make their own creations. In each case, check out the demo, and then use the templates and detailed instructions provided to transform your spreadsheet. While registration is not required for this tool, you do need a Google account. The activity you create will be saved directly to your Google Drive.

The Flippity Activities

Begin by going to the Flippity website at www.flippity.net

Once there you will see a grid of thumbnails showing the wide variety of interactive games and activities you can create with Flippity. There are around 16 web applications to choose from:-

· Flashcards

· Quiz Show

· Random Name Picker

· Scavenger Hunt

· Fun With Words

· Timeline

· Badge Tracker

· Typing Test

· Spelling Words

· Word Search

· Crossword Puzzle

· Word Scramble

· Bingo

· Hangman

· Progress Indicator

· Matching Game

· MadLibs

· Mix and Match

· Tournament Bracket

· Certificate Quiz

If you would like to try out an activity or game to see how it works, simply click the "Demo" link below the thumbnail. This will open the activity, loaded with demo content to test out.

If you would like to learn even more about an activity, click the "Instructions" link to get a page with detailed information about that activity.

See below for how to access the templates and then use them to make your own interactive projects.

Step 1: Modify the Google Spreadsheet Template

· Make a copy of the template provided. (You'll need to sign-in with your school Google account.)

· Now that you have a copy of the Google Sheets template for your activity, you will want to remove the placeholder content and insert your own.

· Do not edit any cell with a blue background.

· Some templates support links to images and YouTube videos.

· At the moment, your Sheet is private just to you, so Flippity is not able to access your content. You need to publish the Sheet for Flippity to be able to use it.

Step 2: Publish Your Spreadsheet

Go to File, Publish to the Web…, then click Publish.

Step 3: Get Your Flippity.net Link

Click on the Get the Link Here tab of the template (at the bottom).

On this Sheet you will find the link to run the interactive Flippity activity with your content.

Click on the Flippity.net link to view your Flippity flashcards.

Step 4: Bookmark and Share

Bookmark the page to find it again quickly.

Share the Flippity.net link with anyone you want to view your flashcards.

How Can I Use Flippity?

You can use Flippity with all subject areas and grade levels. Here are a few ideas for you in using Flippity in your classroom.

As an educator, you can make these activities for your own use or for review games for your class. However, students can also use Flippity to make their own activities, which could be a fun alternative project for those interested. For example, a student could create a set of digital flashcards for the content being covered in a particular unit. This is a fantastic tool for vocabulary development in any subject area!

Differentiation - You can create individual activities for students according to their skill level.

Review - Use the flashcards, quiz show, hangman, word search, etc. to review for a test or to prepare for testing.

Student choice - Give students choices of activities when you are involved in a project.

Project-Based Learning - Teachers are always looking for ways to assess students during project-based learning. Using Flippity is an excellent way to differentiate the content and give students more voice and choice during the project.

Want student teams to see how far they're progressing on an extended project? Use the Progress Indicator to quickly show them what percentage of tasks they've completed.

Need to make sure you're calling on students equally? Add their names to the Random Name Picker.

There are even templates for creating Mad Libs stories and tournament brackets. Keep in mind that some features are supported by ads (however, the ads are only of iXL educational site – do check it before you publish the link).

To summarize,

This tool can be used by the Trainer/ Teacher to:

· Foster student interactivity in classroom-based training.

· Evaluate student learning.

· Track student progression.

· Review lesson plans prior to the presentation.

This tool can be used by the Trainer/Teacher to support student learning by:

Providing the ability to foster student interactivity with the lesson.
Providing a student learning evaluation tool.
Providing a lesson presentation preparation tool.
Providing a student study program.

This tool can be used by students to:

Review and study lesson material.
Share study material with other students.

Tutorial links -

This is a link to Flippity tutorial videos on YouTube. They provide a very descriptive direction for using many of the different Flippity applications.

Web source credits -

https://grad-students-hrd.gitbook.io/technologies/flippity

IS#8_Fiction in the Facts

2020-09-02T23:54:00.000-07:00

Instructional Strategy#8: Fiction in the Facts

Students analyze statements to differentiate between fact and fiction, promoting critical thinking and discourse among students to identify correct content-area knowledge.

(Click on the images to enlarge)

Happy Learning!

IS#7_CUBES Squared

2020-09-02T23:44:00.000-07:00

Instructional Strategy#7: CUBES Squared

CUBES Squared is a strategy to help students dissect questions in both English Language Arts (ELA) and Math. Students encounter a problem or passage and use the steps in the CUBES acronym to solve the key question.

(Click on the images to enlarge)

Happy Learning!

IS#6_Elevator Speech

2020-09-02T23:34:00.002-07:00

Instructional Strategy#6: Elevator Speech

This strategy encourages students to prepare and deliver short persuasive speeches using a version of the "elevator speech" concept.

Students hone their public speaking skills as they persuade their peers to consider the validity of a topic.

(Click on the images to enlarge)

Happy Learning!

IS#5_Tweet Up

2020-09-02T23:26:00.000-07:00

Instructional Strategy#5: Tweet Up

This strategy is used to help students synthesize and summarize information in a clear and concise manner

(Click on the images to enlarge)

Happy Learning!

IS#4_First Word Last Word

2020-09-02T23:15:00.002-07:00

Instructional Strategy#4: First Word Last Word

This formative assessment strategy asks that students construct statements about a topic both before and after instruction,showing how their understanding of that topic changed over the course of instruction.

(Click on the images to enlarge)

Happy Learning!

How is AI used in Education?

2020-09-02T05:17:00.002-07:00

Dear all,

Greetings

Times are changing and education is a field that has to adapt to change the soonest. By doing so, we equip ourselves to impart quality education through modern means that not only resonate with student's understanding, but it stays with them.

In light of this, I happened to stumble across an article - AI in Education (click on this hyperlink to read article) - which speaks about the application of AI in the field of education and what might be in store in the years to come.

Brace yourselves. The era of AI is upon us.

Hope you all find this informatively useful.

Have a nice day!

Changing Behaviour

2020-09-02T05:14:00.002-07:00

Dear all,

Greetings,

As we start a New Year, Curriculum team likes to share this very interesting video about how to motivate yourself to change your behaviour.

This New Year, let's understand the concept of Behaviour and all that entails it so that we not only just understand behaviour but also make changes for our betterment and for those around us.

Hope this proves to be of help to you.

Thank you! Have a nice day.

Understanding Behaviour <- (Click on the link to know more)

Better your Reading Skills

2020-09-02T05:10:00.005-07:00

Dear all,

Greetings

We are all readers in some way or another, but do we read slowly? And is reading slowly such a bad thing after all?

There's a lot that comes out of reading, even if you read slowly, and here's what you can know about it. Courtesy Priyanka Ma'am, I came across this video that speaks about the perks of reading slowly and what it teaches us.

Hoping you all like it, and hoping it makes you go WOW this week.

Thank you.

Better your reading skills <- (click on this hyperlink to watch the video)

Pomodoro Technique for Time management

2020-09-02T04:59:00.000-07:00

Dear Facilitators,

Greetings.

First of all, I am happy to know that despite your busy schedule, some of you are able to read
the Wow articles and not just that, you are even implementing it!

Hence, for the benefit of the rest, I am resharing one of my favourite techniques, the Pomodoro Technique, which has been so far very useful for me.

I would like you all to go through the same and try implementing it, in case you haven't been able to manage it yet.

Thanks for your time!

World Health Day - April 7th

2020-09-02T04:55:00.001-07:00

Dear All,

Greetings.

April 7 of each year marks the celebration of World Health Day. From its inception at the First Health Assembly in 1948 and since taking effect in 1950, the celebration has aimed to create awareness of a specific health theme to highlight a priority area of concern for the World Health Organization.

Sharing an article regarding the same.