March 2

Netflix Documentaries on Youtube

While Netflix doesn’t allow subscribers to stream videos in public settings, they do make some documentaries available for teachers. I found a Youtube channel that has several of these available. They published this during COVID, but have left it up. Thought I’d share in case you weren’t aware of these. There are videos from the following series, and a few stand alones.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvahqwMqN4M0GRkZY8WkLZMb6Z-W7qbLA

Series:

Abstract: The Art of Design

We The People

Amend: The Fight for America

Our Planet

Explained

Full Features:

13th

Chasing Coral

Knock Down the House

Period. End of Sentence

The White Helmets

Zion

 

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December 18

Storytime with Ryan and Craig

 

If you’re looking for a fun read-aloud site, you might want to visit https://www.ryanandcraig.com/read-alouds . There are currently several Christmas stories available on their site, but they have a lot of other options. Ryan and Craig give a fun introduction and then read the book aloud, showing the actual images. This site is not storing their videos on YouTube, so that means students are able to view the videos independently on their Chromebooks. Thanks goes to Sheryl Forsman for sharing this and testing out the Chromebook option.

If you’re using Google Classroom you can add a link as an assignment or use the “Material” option making it easy for students to find it.  If you’d like some accountability, post a Question asking your students which book they listened to and what they liked about it, then post a link to the site or a particular read aloud story to the Question by using the “link” option.

Using SeeSaw? Create an activity that includes the link to the site, and ask them to use the Drawing tool to draw a picture from the story.

Want to keep it simple? Just bookmark the site in your Class Google account or post it to your eBoard so students can access it anytime.

Do the teachers in your school love this so much that they want to add it to the Chromebook Launch Page? (The page the comes up when students click on the Home icon on their Chrome Browser) Just email me and let me know and I can add it.

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November 29

Website Worth Sharing: PBS Learning Media

PBS and KCTS9 have paired up to create a curated collection of standards aligned videos, interactives and lesson plans. When you go to the site https://kcts9.pbslearningmedia.org/  you can use their search field to find specific topics, or browse the collections by clicking on the subject area tiles at the bottom of the page. The menu at the top allows you to search by subject and grade AND if you create an account (login with Google for the easiest method) you can search by Washington State Common Core standards. How awesome is that?

When you find a resource that you want to use, you can automatically share it with your students with a Google Classroom button they provide to the left of the resource. If you teach primary students you can project the videos or activities or bookmark the activities on your Chromebook bookmarks bar.

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April 24

Website Worth Sharing: Seesaw

If you’d like to explore an easy tool for students to use to post/share online multimedia projects, you might want to look into Seesaw: https://web.seesaw.me/ . Teachers create accounts in Seesaw and add student folders. Students who are using the same Google account login with a code that teachers generate for each session (no usernames/passwords to remember!). Students with individual Google accounts login with their Google accounts. Once students enter the Seesaw site, there is a big green plus sign they can click on to create a project. The projects can be pictures (which can have audio, labels, drawings, etc. attached), video,  drawing, Google Drive Files, Notes, and links. You are able to approve the projects before they are posted, which is a good idea. This could be used for small projects, or to create a year long student portfolio of digital work.

 

Seesaw even had ready-made projects that you can assign to the students. The projects walk the students through the steps needed to create the activities.

I was able to watch Seesaw in action with a group of 3rd graders (thank you to Mackenzie McCabe!) The all used the same Google login (their classroom one) to logon to the Chromebooks, and after the first student entered the class code, they all were able to get in to create their project by just navigating to the Seesaw site using the bookmark. The students easily followed the directions to create the project (audio recording of a reading passage attached to an image.)

There is an option to invite families to join (they only see their child’s folder).

Here is a quick video with the basic setup instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSxciQ7S3rw&t=3s

They also have an entire YouTube Channel full of training videos and implementation ideas: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYUfnb7MIsGald-Xtig9Umw

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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

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February 13

Website Worth Sharing: Adobe Spark

If you aren’t doing so already, you may want to introduce your students to Adobe Spark. It’s a free graphic design, web-based, tool provided by Adobe. It allows students to create Posts (Posters, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) Pages, and Videos. It’s pretty user-friendly, and they can add their own photos. This site works great with Chromebooks and they can login with their Google accounts, so account creation is quick. It’s pretty user-friendly, but there are several tutorials on YouTube if you have questions. https://spark.adobe.com/sp/

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January 9

Website Worth Sharing: Mystery Doug

I found this new K-5 video series called Mystery Doug. It looks great and it’s free. I think these will be great for classroom breaks, morning meeting, snack times, etc. All you have to do is sign up to register and each Monday you’ll be sent a link to the week’s new 5 minute video. Kids can even submit questions for new videos or vote on which question will be answered in the following week.

You should sign up quickly. This week’s video answers “Why is January the first month of the New Year?” but it’s only available until Sunday. http://mysterydoug.com

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November 8

Website Worth Sharing: US Music Video Webmix

A Symbaloo webmix is a collection of weblinks all displayed in a visual, tiled format. It’s a nice way to keep all of your favorites on one page. Kevin Neal has created a Webmix of US History videos that I think you might find useful: http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/usmusicvideos There are some pretty good ones. The Bad Romance/Women’s Suffrage one is appropriate for today. If you want to show the videos without ads or distractions, paste the video link into https://safeshare.tv/ for a cleaner version to show.

If you like Kevin’s webmix, check out his page to see more: http://www.symbaloo.com/profile/kevinneal (scroll to the bottom). He has multiple pages so be sure to click on the page numbers to see all of them.

If you like these webmixes, you can create an account in Symbaloo and start making your own.

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November 8

Website Worth Sharing: #kinderchat Symbaloo Webmixes

A Symbaloo webmix is a collection of weblinks all displayed in a visual, tiled format. The user “kinderchat” has created a collection of ABC weblinks in Symbaloo that you might find useful:

http://edu.symbaloo.com/mix/abc You can post this link to an eBoard or bookmark it on your classroom Google account for easy access for your students.

If you want to see the other webmixes created by kinderchat here: http://edu.symbaloo.com/profile/kinderchat . Note that there are 3 pages of webmixes.

The Youtube videos are linked through SafeshareTV which removes the ads and thumbnails of other videos, so that makes them especially nice. A few, like the National Geographic books, require logins so those won’t be useful for you. I also found some eBooks that stop a few pages in as they are “samples” and not the full books. Be sure to test the links before recommending them to your students.

kinderchat

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April 26

Website Worth Sharing: The Kid Should See This

the kidNo matter how well-planned your day, there are often those random 5-10 minute breaks right before recess, lunch, specialists, or the end of the day.  Not enough time for a lesson, but also not time to be wasted. The next time you’re faced with a small block of unplanned time, you might want to consider filling it with a video from http://thekidshouldseethis.com/

The Kid Should See This is a growing library of smart & super-cool, “not-made-for-kids, but perfect for them” videos that can be watched in the classroom. Enjoy 8-12 new videos each week, and search 2,400+ videos in the archives. Their video selections are driven by wonder, enthusiasm, and “wow!” moments. They cover all topics under and beyond our sun, with a special focus on STEAM. These videos give students opportunities to observe, discuss and react to the content presented. You can use their search function to find videos that match what you are studying, or just look for random, interesting material. Here’s a fun one demonstrating camouflage techniques: http://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/8525364408

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