Twitter

Although we have all heard about it and it is far from new, Twitter remains as one of the most effective ways in which students connect with the class in a fun and meaningful way.

 Let's take a look at this twitter class page: Click Here

Now let's play a little game!

1. Who can tell me the object and location of the picture behind my twitter name?

2. Please go to March 6th and answer the question about the World War II pilot. 

3. Now check out February 20th. Who can tell me what become of the man that was on the Nazi's most wanted list?

These are just a few ways to add a little life to your Twitter page.

    Can you think of any more ways? Please comment if you can.

Crash Course: Entertaining and Educational

Crash Course is an educational YouTube channel started by Hank and John Green. Crash Course was one of the 100 initial channels of YouTube's $100 million dollar original channel initiative. Having finished earlier courses on biology, world history, ecology, and English literature, Hank Green now teaches chemistry, and John Green teaches United States history. Crash Course can be used as an anticipatory set of videos for direct instruction or viewed at home as part of a flipped classroom model. Crash Course offers a variety of subjects and is adding content all the time. The Crash Course YouTube channel has gained over 490 thousand subscribers and 24 million video views. If you are a classroom teacher or just someone looking to brush up on a subject Crash Course videos are a great starting point to furthering your education.

Check out this video on the agricultural revolution

Link to Crash Course Page

Google Education Free Apps Galore!!

Google education is a one stop shop offering over 100 free educational apps for the classroom or home school student. Google educations offers applications in subjects that range from Astronomy to Zoology. As a  high school teacher I am truly amazed by the sheer volume of quality of free content Google education offers. In my opinion Google is redefining education with the release of these free use applications. I cannot wait to see what they offer next. Oh yea, did I mention that new free applications are being added all the time! Link to Google Education

Some of my favorite apps on this site include:

3D solar system is a simulation application, which gives you the approximate location of the planets in the solar system at different time, and a good deal of information on each object.

The most comprehensive World Atlas on the internet. Easily navigate to any time and place in history. The World History TimeMap contains over 660 history maps and 1,000 pages of high quality supporting narrative, wrapped up in a unique interface that creates a framework for world history.

Pixton is an award winning tool that gives students a fun, new way to express themselves in the colorful graphical format of comics.







Link to Google Education

Is Your Classroom a Dojo? With ClassDojo Software it Could Be

ClassDojo is a classroom tool that helps teachers improve behavior in their classrooms quickly and easily. It also captures and generates data on behavior that teachers can share with parents and administrators.

Better learning behaviors, smoother lessons and hassle-free data - and its free!

Well that's the sales pitch from the ClassDojo site and I have to admit it is pretty much true. I have been using ClassDojo software in my class for a few months now and I have to say that it is awesome. The ClassDojo software allows me to track the behavior of my entire class with the push of a button on my smartphone, tablet, or standard computer. Once all the class behavior is entered, you can go back and review each student’s behavior in easy to read graph form. ClassDojo also provides graphs on the overall behavior of your class and allows parents track their students behavior with a secret pin number.

For me the best part about ClassDojo is it allows me to get a view of the true behavior of every student. With one hundred and twenty five students It is possible to forget to follow up with a student about poor behavior or encourage and praise students are are exhibiting the best behavior. ClassDojo is truly a great way to increase the efficiency and management of your classroom and did I mention that it is 100% free!!!!!! Click below to check out ClassDojo for yourself.

ClassDojo Link

Diigo-Keep and Share Your Favorite Websites in the Cloud

 Diigo is an awesome tool that allows teachers or anyone else to save their favorite website and shre their with their group or larger Diigo community. Diigo is free for a basic account, which has more than enough features for the average users. If you are a teach Diigo will upgrade your account for free. All that is required is a school related Email account. 

Even if you do not want to share your favorite websites with a larger community, Diigo is great for just keeping your favorite websites in the cloud. Have you ever used a computer that was not your own or purchased a new machine and wished you could access all of your favorite websites. Well Diigo is that perfect answer for both of the above situations. Since your favorite websites are stored in the cloud you can access them from any computer that is connected to the internet.I am currently using Diigo in my professional learning community at the high school where I am a teacher. Diigo is a great way to increase collaboration between a department or entire school. With all of the  teachers in my community using this Diigo, I have access to a constant steam of fresh resources that I can bring to my classroom.

I encourage everyone to try Diigo to get those favorite websites in the cloud. Whether you are going to share your favorite websites or not Diigo is the next step in the evolution of saving your favorite websites.Oh yea, did I mention it is free.
Click this link to access Diigo

Free Everything!

Educational Freeware is a site dedicated to offering the best educational games, software, and websites free of charge for teachers or anyone else dedicated to education. I have utilized this site for a couple years and I am nowhere near exhausting all of the free educational resources that it offers. Every teacher should keep this site at the top of their favorites list. Educational Freeware also has a Multilanguage feature which allows users to sort through the free products by language.

Unlike many other sites that claim to have free educational software, the education free ware site is free from all pop ups and annoying advertising and extremely easy to navigate. One of my favorite applications I found on Educational freeware is Google Bodies. The only way to describe Google Bodies would be to say that it is a fully controllable digital version of Gray’s anatomy. In addition to just giving you the link to the site Educational Freeware gives users detailed instruction on how to access and use the site in an effective manner.

Education Freeware not only does this for Google Bodies, but also for most of the hundreds of other games, software, and websites they have compiled. This site is a great resource for teachers of all grade level and content areas. I could go on and on about all of the features available on this site, but it would be much easier if you just clicked the link below and checked it out for yourself. Trust me you will not be disappointed.

Educational Freeware Link

Do You Weebly?

Weebly website maker is the easiest and most intuitive website creator I have ever used.  Did I mention that it is also free!  Not just free web creation but also free hosting!  Weebly also has many widgets available in addition to one click Google Ad sense set up.

I use Weebly website creator as the culminating project in my computer class every year. I have the students set up a website of their own creation, something that will draw as many viewers as possible and then have them set up a Google Adsense account for their site. High school students love projects with real world implications and the ability for them to make money through a class project is as real as it gets for students.  A great feature about weebly is that you can upgrade your site at anytime without losing any of your content. The pay portion of the site allows users to drop the weebly address from the domain in addition to a host of bonus features.

 I find that the basic site is more than enough for students to complete their project, but I know a few students who have upgraded on their own and from what I have heard are actually making a few dollars on their sites.

Don’t take my word for it though, check it out for yourself.  What do you have to lose it is free!

Click the link below create your very own free website.

Weebly Link