Learn Lead Grow

Do you take a Blockbuster or Netflix approach to education? It's a very important question to ask because it reveals your "why." When you understand your "why," you can begin to understand the need for personalized instruction in your classroom. Blended learning may be a great tool to inspire and adapt to the changing needs of our students. Check out my video below for more:

Flipgrid is an amazing free tool to provide students with a voice in your classroom! Even the quietest student has a voice in this application. Basic Terminology The App is made up of grids and topics. Grids can be defined as a community where all of your topics are housed. For example, you might want to create a Period 1 grid, where all of your topics (discussion topics) are housed. Topics are discussion topics that you want your students to discuss via Flipgrid. How Does It Work?  Step 1: Create a Flipgrid Account First, you will want to visit Flipgrid and sign up for a free account! Step 2: Create a Grid Next, you will want to visit Grids to create your first grid or community. For example, you might want to create a grid for each of your different classes, homerooms, etc. When you create a grid, you will also want to decide how you want students to enroll in your grid. School Email Domain - if you students have Microsoft or G Suite accounts, they can use the

I'm all about simplicity. Sometimes my keep it simple attitude is tested when I find myself multitasking or sharing multiple resources. I was contacted by someone the other day who wanted me to share several URL's to resources. I have to admit that I was dragging my feet a little because of the effort that it required. Then I remembered a great Chrome Extension called OneTab , which takes all of my open tabs and makes them into an easy to share webpage. How Does It Work?  First, install the OneTab Chrome Extension. Next, open up all of the tabs that you would like to share. Click on the One Tab Chrome Extension icon to save all of your tabs. One Tab takes all of your open URL's and saves them. You have a variety of ways to use One Tab. Restore all will open up all of your URL's on your screen.  Delete all will delete your URL's Share as a Webpage will allow you to share all of your links via a webpage or QR Code. This is what I did in the

With fall approaching quickly, many of us are finding ourselves looking for tools to increase student engagement and learning. It can be overwhelming to see the sheer variety of ed tech tools available to teachers and students. One of my favorite learning tools is called Seesaw , which serves as a learning journal and portfolio. It is especially a great tool for the elementary classroom. What Makes Seesaw Great?  First, Brain research is crystal clear that learner variability is the rule and not the exception. Students are very different in how they learn and interact with the world around them. Seesaw provides students with options for engagement and expressing knowledge. Students can type our a response in a note, share a picture or video, add a drawing or annotate a picture, and add a link to another resource. Next, teachers have all of the control with how content is posted in Seesaw. Teachers need to approve a student comment or piece of content before it is made visibl

I have to admit that it's been awhile since I have checked out Class Dojo. I recently checked it out again and noticed some teacher-friendly tools that could be very useful for teachers this upcoming school year. Check out Class Dojo's Toolkit, which contains all sorts of helpful features such as: Timer Group Maker Noise Meter For instance, have you ever had students that had no idea how loud they were? Class Dojo has a feature called Noise Meter that can help you control the volume level in your classroom. Whether you are using the App or the website, you can use your device's microphone to help monitor your students. How often do you want students to work on a task for five minutes, which suddenly becomes fifteen minutes? The timer feature is another helpful tool to keep your students and yourself on task. Want a tool to create random groups? Class Dojo's Group Maker tool makes it easy to create random groups. Simply say how many students you wan