Learn Lead Grow

If you are interested in free iPad recipes to address all learning styles, please join me for a free webinar tomorrow  Thursday, May 1 from 4:00 - 4:30 pm EST  through SimpleK12.  Are You a One and Done?  Are you a "one and done" App user? What I mean is do you only integrate one App per class experience? This may work for some of your students, but it will not work for all of your students. Why? Not every student learns and interacts with Apps the same way. Today I conclude my series on introducing vocabulary terms, while using multiple Apps. Ingredient # 1: Activate Background Knowledge In an earlier  post , I discussed how to activate background knowledge with a simple App called Fridge Poems.  Ingredient # 2: Dice App + Edmodo = Discussion In my previous post , I discussed how you can use the Dice and Edmodo Apps to discuss vocabulary terms.  Ingredient # 3 - Demonstrate Understanding with Tellagami Imagine that there are five minutes to go in class and

Are You a One and Done? Are you a "one and done" App user? What I mean is do you only integrate one App per class experience? This may work for some of your students, but it will not work for all of your students. Why? Not every student learns and interacts with Apps the same way. Over the next few posts, I want to share with you a common way to introduce your students to new vocabulary terms, while using multiple Apps. Ingredient # 1: Activate Background Knowledge In my previous post , I discussed how to activate background knowledge with a simple App called Fridge Poems. Ingredient # 2: Dice App + Edmodo = Discussion After I have my students share their FridgePoems with the class, I want to further investigate what students know about the topic in pairs or small groups. In this case, I want my students to help define the word charisma and provide examples of it in the world. If a term is difficult to define or provide examples, I may give a brief reading assignment fo

Are You a One and Done?  Are you a "one and done" App user? What I mean is do you only integrate one App per class experience? This may work for some of your students, but it will not work for all of your students. Why? Not every student learns and interacts with Apps the same way. If we only focus on using one App per classroom experience, we often leave out many of our students who don't learn this way. My advice is to try to incorporate 2 or more Apps into your experience that will allow different types of learners to connect with material. In other words, don't be a "one and done"! Over the next few posts, I want to share with you a common way to introduce your students to new vocabulary terms, while using multiple Apps. Ingredient # 1: Activate Background Knowledge I was recently trying to meet the curriculum goal to introduce my students to the word charisma and how it impacts our daily lives. I decided that pre-assessing my students on how

Several years ago, I did a webinar titled Wikis are more than Wikipedia.  The purpose the webinar was to give teachers creative ways to use Wikis in their classroom. With the emergence of new technologies, Apps, and devices, we sometimes forget the power of a wiki and how it can help all students learn. Have you ever thought that a wiki could be used to teach vocabulary?  Not every student grasps vocabulary because every student's brain interprets and learns vocabulary differently; therefore, it is necessary to provide students with different ways of learning new terms. I recently heard of a sixth grade teacher, who uses a wiki to create a classroom dictionary for her students to refer to during the course of the year. Students are encouraged to provide multiple ways of understanding terms by adding text, pictures, video clips, and external links. This is a perfect tool for students with different abilities and learning styles because they can understand the vocabulary term

listen to ‘Get Rid of One-Size-Fits-All Approaches to Research and Try Searchy Pants’ on Audioboo Let's face it, our students are the masters of finding and accessing inappropriate content - either purposefully or accidentally. As educators, we have the professional responsibility to protect our students from accessing inappropriate content, while providing them with valuable tools to find the information they need. Even with the most advanced filtering systems, slips do happen. Perhaps you take a one-size-fits-all approach to research. How does this help all of your learners in your classroom? Google and Yahoo are great search engines, but there are a variety of safe search engines available for educators to use to help provide scaffolding for basic or struggling learners. SearchyPants  is a tool that educators can use to create their own customized search engine to meet the needs of their students without eliminating the functionality of a search engine. For example, let&

On Monday of this past week, I had made a post referencing the MoveNote App as a way to jigsaw assignments. After much thought, I wanted to share with you another creative way to use  MoveNote  and LiveBinders  as a study tool. We all have various ways of reviewing for tests. Some of us use stations, others review sheets, and some have students create cheat sheets. Why not use MoveNote as a tool for review? Imagine having students use MoveNote to review materials for an upcoming test. You may begin with assigning students a particular concept or review question. In turn, they would have to verbally explain their response to their peers (perfect for auditory learners) while gathering pictures to illustrate the concept for visual learners. As students finish their presentations,you begin collecting the URL's of their responses to embed into a LiveBinder. This binder will contain the student presentations and resources to help all students grasp materials. This is an easy w

My students and I started a new unit today, which required motivating them a different way. I wanted to provide students with a unique way to jigsaw the information that we were discussing in class. If you are not familiar with a jigsaw, it is when you divide up a task (usually a reading assignment) and assign different parts to different groups of students.  My students broke into groups and were responsible for presenting a certain portion of the assignment to the class. Rather than create a poster or a boring PowerPoint, I asked students to use MoveNote to use 3 to 5 different pictures to illustrate a concept. Students used these pictures to construct the framework for their 1 - 2 minute synopsis of the topic.  As students record their presentation, they are also being recorded by their webcam. Not only is there an informational element to the presentation, but we are able to see their faces and hear their voices making the presentation. When students were finished, they sha

Have you ever had a student accuse you of picking on them? That you had it out for them? That you never call on any other student in the class? Now you have a high-tech tool to help you randomly call the names of your students. ClassTools has a free online Random Name Picker to help you with classroom management. How does it work? 1. Click on the Edit/Save button 2. Enter in the names of your students and click "save this list as currently shown." You will be prompted to type in a password, so that you can make edits later. 3. ClassTools will generate a unique URL, so that you can access your Random Name Picker online. If you ever need to make edits, you will just need to enter in the password that you created earlier. There are numerous ways to share: Embed the code on your website Share the URL Generate a QR Code, so that you can access it on  your mobile device Download the web shortcut Let technology help you solve the problem of selecting students t

I am always looking for creative and different ways for students demonstrate their understanding of a particular concept. In my experience, the more creative the medium, the more engaging it is to students. One free creative iPad App that I found is called FridgePoems .  It reminds me of the letter magnets that my children use to spell out random words on our fridge at home. In a similar way, FridgePoems lets students take randomly generated words to compose a poem. There are  several different fridge layouts and ways to customize your fridge, so you can be really creative. By default, words are selected from a Standard Word-pack; however, you did have the option of purchasing other Word-packs. The Standard Word-pack is a great way to introduce a topic, define a particular vocabulary term, or wrap up a lesson. Poems can be easily saved to your Camera Roll or shared through a text message, Facebook post, or email. Have other creative ways to engage students? I would love to hear abo