Functional Closure Part 3: More Digital Resouces
In this blog post, you will learn about a few more digital resources I like to use. Some of these I use in my regular classroom AND they can be shifted to using when working online. A portion of this post is dedicated to Office365 apps. This is because, in my school district every student and adult has access to Office365.
Digital Resouces
Things I use in the classroom—and online!
Steve Wyborney’s Blog: Steve Wyborney has so many free resources on his blog that are linked to number sense. He is the creator of Esti-mysteries and has many SPLAT images as well. I love running Esti-mysteries in my class as a number sense routine. They are really fun and help students develop math vocabulary, visual estimation, and problem solving. An Esti-mystery would be easy to run during an online meeting if you are able to screen share PowerPoint presentations. You can also have kids create their own Esti-mysteries as a digital assignment to share with the class.
Book Creator: I use Book Creator to make digital books that I can share with kids and families. They are great right now because parents cannot come on site due to pandemic restrictions. Once students know how to make a book, they can use it to make a digital book to share with anyone. They can share the book as a link, a PDF, or a digital book. Surrey School District has a login for EACH student and teacher. Teachers should make a library for their class. As the teacher, you will be able to see all books that are being worked on in your library and you will be able to provide feedback.
Jam Board: This is something I used on TEAMS during a Numeracy Project. I say this because I think it is important for you to know that I haven’t used it with students. I really can see the benefits of it though. It was very easy to use. See the video below of me using it for the first time to design a visual provocation! The links can be embedded in TEAMS easily.
Office365 Apps
In Surrey, we have access to many Office365 Apps. This section gives you an overview of a few that I think might be useful to help increase engagement and/or connect with students.
Forms
You can use forms to (1) send out surveys, (2) ask poll questions within your team or during and meeting and (3) run quizzes that can be embedded in Teams assignments. You can make forms that ANYONE can fill out (like parents) or only people with a login. I did end-of-the-week surveys during digital teaching with Forms that kids completed every Friday and they really helped me connect to the students. I also used a quiz to create a Core Competency reflection. The reason I made it a quiz is that I could then embed it in a Teams assignment and download a pdf of responses for esch child to attach to FreshGrade. See the video for more information.
Sway
Sway is a multi-media presentation space. I have used it to share information with students, to create virtual museums of student work, and to help kids run virtual buddies. It can be used to create powerful Genius Hour or Inquiry Projects. Students can work on in together by sharing links, or on their own. It is very intuitive to use and looks very sleek.
Word
I know that you know how to use word. I promise. There are two little things that you can do to help make using word easier .
Teach students how to use voice-to-text software. I wrote a blog post about this about a month ago. The neat thing about voice-to-text is that students have to say the punctuation. It creates great connections.
When you are using Word for assignments, you can embed links as hyperlinks. Highlight the text you want to be a hyperlink. Right click and look at your options. One if then will be to add a link. Hyperlinks are much less tedious than inserting a long website url.
Final Thoughts
There is so much technology out there that it can feel overwhelming. Choose a few things that speak to you and use them well. As you build your confidence, add in something new.
There are things that I still don’t do. I never made a bitmoji Mrs.Salter or a digital classroom with my bitmoji. I also have no idea how to use Kahoot!—which I know many teachers love. I am sure both are easy, but right now, adding these two seems overwhelming for me.
During the last closure, I stuck with the apps I knew and found ways to use them to help build engagement with my kids. I also tried out some of the Office365 apps and appreciated the tech videos abour these by our district tech person—thanks Antonio!
Start small….take deep breaths…if you feel ovwrwhelmed, go for a walk and take a break. Technology can be a powerful took AND a source if stress at the same time. My goal is to help reduce the stress right now the way Antonio’s videos did for me during the last shutdown.
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This will be the last post in this series unless I get specific questions about digital resources that I feel like I can answer. I might, however, start a series about pandemic teaching in the classroom to build connection and engagement, even as we move back into higher restrictions.
Thank you for reading and sharing my posts. I hope they continue to be helpful. For now, I am heading to bed so that I can enjoy my weekend with my little human…and somehow also do some planning for January.