Learn Lead Grow

I was recently perusing through Twitter and read an interesting comment that was made many times. "An electronic worksheet is still a worksheet" and "if you can do it on paper, then why waste the electricity to do it electronically." Don't get me wrong, I do see the logic; however, are we forgetting about the students in the margins? The students who need adaptations made to materials based on disability? Are we forgetting the students who prefer to work with an electronic copy rather than a paper copy? Are we forgetting about how an electronic copy creates functional improvements with hyperlinks, video clips, and editing features? Why It's Good to Give Electronic and Paper Options: Several years ago, I had a student in my class who refused to bring his glasses to school. It seemed like every time we had a reading assignment, I had to trudge down to the copier to make a 200% copy. One day the copier broke and I was out of luck. What did I do? I share

Using FlipQuiz is extremely helpful and and easy. I love using it as a whole class activity or something to share with my students as a study tool. I created the following video to help you. Enjoy! Share the Love with a Vote!  Voting takes place until 11:59 pm on Monday, December 15th. My blog has been nominated in several categories for this year's Edublog Awards! If you enjoy reading this blog, please share the love and vote for Learn-Lead-Grow. I created this page to help you with voting because it can be a little tricky.   IMPORTANT : PLEASE CLICK ON THE THUMBS UP LOGO BELOW. YOU WILL THEN BE PROMPTED TO SIGN IN USING A SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT. You have to sign in using Facebook, Google, Linked In, or Twitter to cast a vote! If you click on the number of votes, you will only see everyone who voted. Unfortunately this doesn't cast a vote. Need help? Voting can be a little tricky!   Check out my how-to video!  Please vote for ALL 3 categories on

I am a finalist for the 2014 Edublog Awards for Best Ed Tech / Sharing Blog, Best Teacher Blog, and Best Individual Blog. If you like what you see, it would mean so much if you cast a vote for me  HERE.  Voting takes place until 11:59 pm on Monday, December 15th. Introduction: For those of you not familiar with this week, it is the Hour of Code week. Millions of students and teachers across the nation are taking part. What can you do to keep inspiring your students after the Hour of Code is over? Why not have your students create their own App. It's pretty easy! HHABM and App Creation:  One of the best parts of being a teacher at the Milton Hershey School is the kids I get to work with. A few months ago, a group of my honors business students and I traveled to the Hershey Company to give presentations to employees and executives. It was part of our Hershey's Honors Authentic Business Management program, a 34 week course where students learn about every aspect of th

I am a finalist for the 2014 Edublog Awards for Best Ed Tech / Sharing Blog, Best Teacher Blog, and Best Individual Blog. If you like what you see, it would mean so much if you cast a vote for me  HERE.  Voting takes place until 11:59 pm on Monday, December 15th. Feedback is an essential element to learning, but why do many of us struggle with providing valuable feedback to improve student performance? I've struggled with this too. I recently read an article by Troy Hicks of Edutopia titled  Make It Count: Providing Feedback as Formative Assessment , which provided me with valuable strategies to use to provide meaningful feedback to my students. We often think an Edmodo badge, a Google comment saying "Good Job," or a foil sticker communicates feedback effectively. Although, they are wonderful forms of feedback, how do we help our students grow? In Troy Hick's article, he mentioned the  RISE Model  for  meaningful feedback and self evaluation. This model was develo

I am a finalist for the 2014 Edublog Awards for Best Ed Tech / Sharing Blog, Best Teacher Blog, and Best Individual Blog. If you like what you see, it would mean so much if you cast a vote for me  HERE.  Voting takes place until 11:59 pm on Monday, December 15th. What does effective technology integration look like? I believe it starts with how technology is implemented. In other words, successful technology integration is not about the tool, but how the tool is used. What is SAMR? SAMR Model If you are not familiar with the SAMR model, Kathy Schrock has an excellent resource to understand it. This is a popular model was developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura and stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. Think of SAMR as a lens to view the pairing of effective instruction and technology integration. How would you integrate SAMR into teaching vocabulary?  S - Substitution: The lowest level of SAMR is known as Substitution, meaning technology is

I am a finalist for the 2014 Edublog Awards for Best Ed Tech / Sharing Blog, Best Teacher Blog, and Best Individual Blog. If you like what you see, it would mean so much if you cast a vote for me  HERE. Many teachers limit their students to writing research papers in Microsoft Word; however, here are three excellent tools that make it easy to write a research paper in Google Docs. Tip #1: Create Your Own Table of Contents If you are like most people, you often ignore using the text styles feature  for headings like heading 1, 2, 3, etc; however, there is a huge benefit to use headings as section titles in your document. Google can use these headings to help create your own table of contents with hyperlinks, which anchor to particular sections of your document. How do you do it?  Before you are able to use this feature, you must use the section titles format (i.e. Heading 1) for section titles! Once you are ready: 1. Place your cursor where you want your table of cont

I am a finalist for the 2014 Edublog Awards for Best Ed Tech / Sharing Blog, Best Teacher Blog, and Best Individual Blog. If you like what you see, it would mean so much if you cast a vote for me HERE. Remember the days of using Jeopardy as a review game? Did you use a dusty old chalkboard or try to find some trendy PowerPoint template? Was it time consuming and difficult to form? Why not try an easy and free alternative? What can I do instead?  Perhaps you could add FlipQuiz to your review / flashcard repertoire to create interactive quiz boards that look and function much like flashcards with a game show twist! How do I use it?  Step 1: Create a free account at  FlipQuiz Step 2: Create your board.  When you create your first board, you will be prompted to give it a name. Step 3: Add category names . Just like Jeopardy has category names, you will need to create up to six category names for your questions. You can leave category names blank or use less than six if yo

Saving time and making communication with parents more efficient has never been easier than with  SchoolCircle,   a free website allows you to communicate quickly to entire groups or individual parents. My last post provided you with a brief introduction, but how does it work? Step 1: Create Your Circle After you sign up as a teacher, you will be prompted to create your own class, which is known as a circle. I named mine Mr. Bergman's Class. Step 2: Invite Circle Members  If you visit "Manage Members" on your dashboard and select "Invite," you will be able to invite parents as circle members. You will need to copy and paste your parent's email addresses in the space provided and click Send. School Circle automatically sends an email to parents! When parents receive the email, they will be prompted to create an account. Step 3: Start Using SchoolCircle! There are several things that you can do with SchoolCircle: Create a Task - this is the p

Busy. It seems like the best word to describe most parents, teachers, and students today. There is always some place to be or some event to attend. Being able to effectively communicate with parents (in all of their business) has to be one of the most frustrating parts of being a teacher today.  Some of us send emails that are never read or design websites that are never visited. What if there was a better way to reach our busy parents? Over the next few posts, I am going to introduce you to SchoolCircle, a free one-stop-shop communication tool, which will change the way you communicate with parents. No more frustrating mailer daemon messages or disconnected phones. Communicate quickly to your entire group of parents or have individual conversations! Communicate to the Entire Group: Picture from School Circle (2014) For example, let’s say that you wanted to post a message about your upcoming field trip and share an electronic copy of your permissi