May 24

Website Worth Sharing: Almost Fun- Culturally Responsive Math Lessons and Test Prep

The Almost Fun website has some nice interactive teaching resources for a variety of topics. This non-profit has a goal of providing culturally-responsive learning resources for diverse students that will engage them in learning about math. In addition to the Math Lessons: https://www.almostfun.org/lessons , they provide resources for teachers like Lesson Templates https://www.almostfun.org/for-teachers . This would be a good way to provide additional resources when students struggle with certain concepts.

In addition to their Math lessons, they provide SAT Test Prep for all 3 subjects: https://www.almostfun.org/app/profile?s=reading

You might also want to check out their College guides: https://www.almostfun.org/guides

You’ll notice that some of their lessons, especially the more advanced topics, are still under construction, so you might want to visit back if they don’t have what you need.

May 11

Website Worth Sharing: Science News for Students

You might want to add this website to your Google Classroom resource list: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/ It contains news articles written for students on a variety of interesting topics. The reading level for the articles spans between 6th and 9th grade. There is a menu at the top that allows you to sort articles by category, but if you use enter a search term into the search field at the top it will give you advanced search options. Some articles have vocabulary word lists. If you enter your email address in the box on the website, it will give you access to educator resources

March 4

Website Worth Sharing: Bad News and BBC iReporter

With the election year amping up, it might be good time to develop your students’ information literacy skills.

These two sites are set up for students to experience on a computer, so you’ll want the Chromebook cart for these. They are both fast paced and engaging, and hopefully students will come away with some skills about how to be better consumers of media. If you choose the BBC iReporter one, be sure students use headphones or ear buds.

 

  • Bad News: Modern, minimalist fake news game has players be the villains. Allow 20 minutes for your students complete this activity. This was designed for ages 14 and up.
    • For more information on how/why this game was developed and more instructional resources, check out their Information Sheet
  • BBC iReporter: Spot real stories, dodge fake news in cheeky media literacy sim.
March 1

Website Worth Sharing: Flipgrid

Gathering and evaluating student feedback can often be time consuming. Flipgrid is an interesting tool that gives you an opportunity to gather verbal feedback into one place. Flipgrid allows you to create a “Grid” (think classroom or collection) and add “Topics” (think questions or prompts) and allow your students to respond in video format (there is a 90 second limit- but that can be adjusted in your settings). Students can share their own feedback and also see what their classmates have said. This would be good for speech teachers and ELL teachers who want to give their students the opportunity to respond orally to questions. Teachers can create a free account, which allows them to create one “Grid” and then post multiple topics. Once the topic is created, it generates a unique code that students use to respond to your topic. They require that you collect a parent permission form if using this with students under 13 or using the PLC/Public option with students under 16. https://static.flipgrid.com/docs/Flipgrid_consent_form.pdf 

  1. School Email Domain – If your students have school emails, use this option for your Grid. Students enter the Flip Code and verify their email using Microsoft or Google.
  2. Student ID List – If your students don’t have emails, use this option. Students enter the Flip Code and input their Student ID #, or scan a QR code for verification.
  3. PLC and Public – Allow anyone to view videos with just the Flip Code. To record a video, participants verify their email address via Microsoft or Google, including personal @outlook.com and @gmail.com emails.

Teachers have the option of choosing from several settings including the ability to moderate the posts so they have to be approved prior to appearing for everyone to see. This would be a good idea if students are recording unsupervised. I tested this out on a Chromebook and it worked great. It’s also smartphone friendly if they download the app.

If you want to give it a try, respond to my question: https://flipgrid.com/fa4a8d
The password is sargent (I don’t recommend posting passwords online, but I’ll make an exception in this case.)

Here’s a nice 3 minute YouTube video that explains how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aXsIYYEgRY&t=0s&index=8&list=PL3FMVFVAvQFRyJSYA4Feu9qJLZvb_oLWd

And another that shares directions for students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yYFJgbfLTE

December 6

Website Worth Sharing: Everfi

Everfi: http://everfi.com/  is an online self-paced curriculum that students can use to learn a variety of topics. They have units in health, financial literacy, digital citizenship and more. This is free to teachers due to the fact that they allow corporate sponsors to advertise. Teachers must create accounts in order to access the materials. Some units are available when you first login and others can become available if you “request access”. I did this on a couple of units and heard back before the end of the day. Most of their units are designed for middle or high school, but there are a couple for elementary also. The video game style of delivery (must unlock levels to move on, earn certificates as you go) would be engaging to students and teachers will appreciate the dashboard where they can track student progress.

Update: They added new free curriculum. See all free offerings HERE.

October 19

Website Worth Sharing: CanFigureIt Geometry Explorations

Math Teachers,

I found an interesting online tool that might help your students with Geometry proofs. At https://www.canfigureit.com/ students can practice proof activities by following the bright pink “start learning” links While it initially takes kids to a login screen, the pink button will allow them to bypass that and go right to the activity (or you can skip right to https://geo.canfigureit.com/#/container?auth_token=7f2og073sgihoo824qtnmfrm06 ). Once in, they will be able to choose from a variety of activities that will allow them to create proofs for “unjustified claims”. There are several levels of difficulty, which will allow you to differentiate for student ability. To learn more about how it works, check out this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feaqw4os_MQ

As a teacher, you can ask to be a part of their pilot (look for a  link at the bottom of their homepage) which will allow you and your students to have accounts.

The site fits into the “free for now” category which means at some point they may start charging for some of the site. Often, though, they maintain a free portion even after they start charging for advanced tools. Time will tell with this one.

If you get into this, you may want to watch this video about the Algebra Manipulator that is available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gvnIq6PtGo

September 25

Website Worth Sharing: Would You Rather

It’s often tricky to come up with real life examples of how to use math concepts. I found a site that does just that and encourages students to use reasoning and communication to address the problem. It’s called WouldYouRather http://www.wouldyourathermath.com/ and is a series of blog posts with a challenge question for each one. John Stevens, the blog author, also provides this sheet that can be printed out for student work: http://www.wouldyourathermath.com/wyr-sample-sheet/

Each entry is tagged with a topic(s) (ex- calculus or geometry) and you can access the tags on the lower right of the page in order to sort the posts.

Because each challenge is presented as an image, those images could be copied and pasted into a PowerPoint or SMART Notebook lesson for ease of use.

If you like this concept, you might also want to check out http://www.estimation180.com/ for estimation activities and http://www.mathtalks.net/ for math talks and pattern talks, and Visual Patterns http://www.visualpatterns.org/  (go to the bottom of this page for student handouts http://www.visualpatterns.org/teachers.html )

September 18

Website Worth Sharing: Quill

I’ve been looking at a new writing tool that shows promise, so I thought I’d share. https://www.quill.org/ was created by a non-profit group committed to providing writing tools that will help students improve their composition skills. Created from the Common Core, Quill provides exercises and assessments to help students improve their writing. The activities are brief and can be used as bell-ringers, or extensions. Teachers have dashboard access that will help them monitor student progress. Here is a brief introduction video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-clKDhqrqQ (check out their channel for more activities: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG9mgvktG6vxp7XoYEJTiaw )

 

Quill allows you to create classrooms, add students, and assign activities. It integrates with Google Classroom, so you if you are using Classroom, you can just connect the two. While they do have a “Premium” (paid)  version that provides greater in-depth reporting, the free version allows access to all of the tools.

February 22

Website Worth Sharing: Nepris

If you haven’t heard about Nepris, you may want to check it out: https://www.nepris.com/

Nepris connects educators and students to industry experts through web-based chat sessions about careers, topics and concepts students wish to learn more about. The free version gives you access to their video library of past sessions, lesson plans and 1 live Industry Chat and 1 live Session. For the $149 yearly subscription you can have unlimited access and request sessions. Many of the recorded sessions include questions from the students who requested the session. Presenters are volunteers, so some might be better quality than others. One I checked out said “Um” every 15 seconds and appeared to be selling a product. Others look better. Even thought some of the presentations lack “polish”, they are still presenting valuable career and college information for students. In addition to career presentations, there are several on the college application and admission process.