Links You’ll Love
AllSides for Schools is a great resource with guidance to help students build skills in news literacy, bias awareness, critical thinking, and conversation across difference.
I really enjoyed this Wired Magazine article about raising kids in the digital media age.
I love me some Flipgrid! Here are some tips to using it in the classroom.
Check out Dicta – a really well done Hebrew/English website that offers analytical resources for Hebrew text, including a citation finder and the capability to add automatic nikudot.
Links You’ll Love
If you need another reason to promote creativity in the classroom, here’s an article that discusses the rewards.
Ancestry.com has a public site available to search Holocaust records. You will need to create an account in order to access the information.
It happens to all of us – while traveling, you get that panicked feeling that your phone or tablet will run out of juice. Before you use a public USB port to charge a device, read this article.
NASA just made their entire video and image library available online. It’s filled with so many pretty pictures! Check it out here.
Links You’ll Love
If you’re teaching about using primary sources, DocsTeach is a good resource. Hosted by the National Archives, DocsTeach allows you to save and share the primary sources as well as create, save and share teaching activities.
The Newseum offers free virtual classes on a variety of subjects, including media literacy, freedom of speech and online trolling. Classes range from 30-50 minutes long and are adjustable to any bell schedule. And did I mention they’re free? Learn more here.
Name the Rover! Kids in kindergarten through twelfth grades are invited to submit their suggestions (in 150 words or fewer) for the name for the next Mars Rover. To learn more about the mission to Mars and the contest, check out the site here.
This blog post has links to some great wordless movies that you can use to inspire your students to talk about problem solving. Sadly, the first video is blocked for using copyrighted content (boo, Disney!), but the others are available and very nice.
Links You’ll Love
Mathschase is a fun site to review multiplication. No sign up required and looks like it’s completely ad-free.
If you’re a fan of Boomerang, you’ll be happy to know that now you can schedule your Google emails right in Gmail. You’ll notice that there’s a little drop down menu next to “Send” – just click on that and schedule when your email will be sent.
Links You’ll Love
Design Thinking is an approach to problem solving that can be implemented in any setting. Here are some awesome resources if you’re thinking about trying it with your students:
Five Chairs Exercise we used in January (I do this with the third and fourth graders)
Links You’ll Love
NewsFeed Defenders is a media literacy game from FactCheck.org designed to help students spot fake news and misinformation. Speaking of media literacy, brothers Hank and John Green (yes – that John Green) have a new media literacy series on their YouTube channel Crash Course. You can check out the first in the series here.
Who doesn’t love folktales? CircleRound is a storytelling podcast that’s geared to kids 4 through 10. You can listen online or subscribe through Apple iTunes.
Links You’ll Love
If you’re interested in using Google Slides for formative assessment, check out this post about using the Pear Deck add-on.
If you’re a Google Classroom user, you might be interested in integrating materials into your Classroom. Check this post out for more info.
I tripped across ReadWorks while looking for student-friendly articles. This is a great resource; teachers can use it for free, and it offers articles, questions sets, vocabulary and more.
Links You’ll Love
StoryboardThat is an awesome website where you can create storyboards and comics. You can create two storyboards a week with the free edition. The site includes background images, graphics, thought bubbles are more.
Don’t know what to write about? Check out StoryStarter for Kids. Students get a random starter sentence to copy and paste into a Google Docs.
Webjets is a very cool digital curation platform. It’s basically a space for you to compile all your resources in one place. You can sign up using your Google credentials.
If you’re a fan of Kahoot! Or Quizlet, check out Gimkit. It’s easy to set up, fast-paced, and you can use Quizlets that you’ve already created.
I introduced Flipgrid last year. For those of you who’d like to explore using it for formative assessment, this blog post explains a nice way to integrate PearDeck.
Links You’ll Love
If you’re looking to integrate STEM into K-2, check out the PictureSTEM Project which offers units that use an engineering challenge and picture books as supports for learning science, mathematics, engineering, computational thinking, and reading.
If you’re looking for free sound effects, visit FreeSound. Everything is creative commons licensed, which means you and your students can use any sound in any project without getting permission from the creator.
If you need a common whitespace that everyone in a class can access, try Twiddla. Basically you create a space, invite others, and anything anyone puts on the screen can be seen by everyone.
If you’re a Google Slides user, you might want to check the Slides Toolbox add-on. It’s got some nice tools, gets great reviews, and is free to install.
BioInteractive is a very nice science site, with loads of resources including posters, videos and articles.
Links You’ll Love
If you’re looking for a way your students can create newspapers online, check out Printing Press. It is Flash-based, so I’m not sure it’ll work on an iPad, but it should be fine on a Chromebook.
ProjectPals is a task-management website that will support your students who are working on independent projects.
WriteReader is a very cool website where students can write books and include photos and narration. You can log in with your Google credentials and it will coordinate with classes that you’ve already set up in Google Classroom. It supports Hebrew text input. The website features images, or you can upload from the computer or search for them on the Internet. Books can be viewed online or downloaded and printed.
If you want to create games that your students can play, check out PurposeGames. It’s free to use, and you can create games like matching games, multiple choice quiz, and type-the-answer. You can also search from games that others have created.
About
Debbie Harris is the director of educational technology at the Sager Solomon Schechter Day School in Northbrook, IL. Involved in Jewish education for over thirty years, she has an education degree from Northwestern University with a concentration in instructional media and a master’s degree in professional Jewish studies from Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership. She is skilled in using and teaching desktop publishing, video editing, presentation and animation software; and consults and presents regularly on integrating technology into Judaic studies. Her students podcast, blog, edit video and create claymations. She co-chaired the technology track for CAJE 33 in Vermont, is a SMART Certified Trainer for SMART Notebook, and a 2011 recipient of the Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award for Excellence in Jewish Education.
When not learning, teaching or writing about technology, Debbie likes to sketchnote and craft. She likes to knit, do calligraphy, sew, watercolor, paint fabric and just generally play with fun toys like scrapbooking supplies and anything with texture. Debbie travels to California every summer to paint tallitot with high school aged campers. Finally, she is incredibly proud of her two daughters; Lori, who teaches English at a community college; and Allie, who is the director of the URJ’s Camp Newman in California.
Look for her at:
Debbie Does Desktop
Flickr
Twitter
Diigo
YouTube
Ravelry
Email Debbie here
MuseForJews 