Resources for Teachers from Teachers

It must be the nature of teaching, but we enter the year with an anticipation and willingness to try new ideas and technologies. Then December hits and well....we begin to lack motivation! With this eagerness and anticipation of a new school year, here are some resources for you that have been passed along to me from some of the best in the field:

 1. 100+ Video Sites Every Educator Should Bookmark - Emma Taylor found this excellent article written by Alvina Lopez, which gives you tons of resources for sharing video in class. Does your school block YouTube? This may be a great article to check out, so that you are able to show video clips without taking the YouTube route!

2. Instant Classroom - Heather Dougherty shared this cool classroom management tool with me. Instant Classroom provides a way of randomly making groups, randomly calling on students with a random name generator, and provides a tool for making seating charts (if you need the software to do this).

3. Speed Match Quiz Game - we always hear that games make learning fun and provide the necessary engagement to help kids learn. The Speed Match Quiz Game is a tool to help you create your own customized game, where students match questions and answers.

4. Time Me - I know that I have already written about this tool, but one of my former students Margaret shared this tool with me. It's a free online timer that requires no software downloads and is very easy to use.

5. Class Dojo - my most recent graduate class put this tool on our "Cool Websites" section of our class website. Class Dojo is a unique way of keeping track of the individual performance and behavior of students in your class. You can instantly record data on your phone, laptop, computer, or iPad. This is a great way of helping students manage their behavior, while effortlessly keeping track of documentation for parents, teachers, administrators, and your records.

If you have any ideas or would like to serve as a guest blogger, please email me. I'd love to hear from you!