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DOGO News: current events and non-fiction for your classroom

We believe in thanking our sources! This post was sourced from the following blog/website: http://ilearntechnology.com/wordpress/?p=5816

The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!

What it is: DOGO News is a great place for kids to learn about current events, read non-fiction articles, and access customized content that you curate. DOGO features thousands of news articles and new original content added daily, this is the leading online source of current events for students, teachers, and schools! DOGO Teachers allows you to create a special page for your students. Each article lists the Common Core Standards it meets, and the grade levels it is appropriate for.

How to integrate DOGO News in your classroom: DOGO News is a fantastic resource for you (and students) to find, read, and interact with non-fiction news articles in your classroom. The site is very easy for kids to navigate. The homepage includes the most up-to-date content, but students also have the option to read articles based on a passion they have (science, social studies, world events, environment, fun, video, or sports) or to search for a specific topic. DOGO is obviously an easy go-to for current events and non-fiction reading and for research in the inquiry classroom.

Our students love to read an article as a class and then search for biases. If there aren’t any obvious biases, they talk about ways the topic might be written about with bias. This generally leads to really great class discussions and bunny trials of questions and research. DOGO is a great place for this activity to start.

DOGO also has a Books and Movies where kids can read reviews written by other kids for books and movies. Students can join DOGO to add their own book and movie reviews.

Tips: Teachers- you can sign up for two different kinds of accounts on DOGO. The free account lets you create your own DOGO class page and add your own assignments. There is also a paid account option that includes some additional features that would be ideal if you use Google Classroom and would like to access ready-made assignments on DOGO.

Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know. Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do! Yours In Education! Time To Teach

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Flipgrid for every classroom

We believe in thanking our sources! This post was sourced from the following blog/website: http://ilearntechnology.com/wordpress/?p=5824

The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!

What it is: Flipgrid is a video discussion platform for your classroom that lets you engage and capture learning in new and awesome ways. It’s simple (and free) to get started, just create a grid and add a topic to spark some discussion. Students can respond with short video responses using any browser, Chromebook, iPad, tablet, or mobile device. All the students can view the videos and engage. You can moderate videos, provide custom feedback, and set the privacy rules. The free version of Flipgrid lets you create one grid (this is your classroom or community), unlimited student videos (up to 90seconds), simple individual student feedback, and private video sharing with families.

You are the Flipgrid Topic Designer (your students could be as well!). Embed YouTube or Vimeo videos, upload images for your students to discuss, feature a file or a weblink.

How to integrate Flipgrid into your classroom: Flipgrid is a great way to get your students reflecting on learning, collaborating, and providing peer feedback. Students can create and share a book talk or chapter reflection, discuss current events, delve into a topic, engage in an online Socratic seminar around a given topic, collaborate, verbalize their learning process, etc. Flipgrid works in any classroom, with any age student, and within any subject. The sky (and your collective imaginations) are really the limit!

Flipgrid is a fantastic add to the language arts classroom where students can: share a word of the week, complete a video chapter summary, create a character monologue, explore themes and ideas in a text, complete a book review/book talk, ask questions of the author, come up with alternative endings, make text predictions, dramatic readings, practice reading fluency/voice/tone/inflection, reflect or wonder during reading, make connections to other learning, explore metaphor, practice and reflect on presentation skills, collaborative Flipgridding with another classroom, explore perspective, or conduct interviews.

In the math classroom students can: talk through their process or problem solving approach, share examples of found math in context, number talks, weekly math challenges, find the mistake responses, student created math tutorials of new concepts they are learning, stump the class challenges, demonstrations with manipulatives, solving or creating their own “what doesn’t belong” challenges, or solutions to math challenges with multiple outcomes.

In the science classroom, students can: share each step of an experiment through the scientific method with each step being a new video, document dissection, reflect on failures, show the process of building or designing, make predictions, document process, demonstrate, post wonderings, or class challenges.

In the history/social studies classroom students can: do living history exercises where they take on the persona of a historical character, reflect on an era or connective topic like: “what are contributing factors to revolutions,” conduct interviews, explore perspectives, reflect on and discuss current events, create a video timeline of events, connect past events to current events, explore historical trends, connect with other classrooms from around the world, explore place and environment, teach classmates about a historical theme that they geek out on, explore social justice issues, or give a voice to those who historically haven’t had one.

Flipgrid makes for an excellent addition to the portfolio. I love the way it encourages collective intelligence and highlights the social nature of learning. Flipgrid is also a great way to build a growth mindset and self-assessment. As students complete any project or assignment, they could add their reflection on the learning as well as where they think they are currently in their learning journey (we use the progression of Novice, Apprentice, Practitioner, Scholar, Change Maker).

At the end of every year at Anastasis, we host an event we call “Storyline.” Flipgrid would be an excellent addition to that end of year celebration and review of the year. Students could use Flipgrid to document learning progress throughout the year and use it as a way to review their growth.

Tips: Flipgrid integrates seamlessly with other education products you are already using including WordPress, Canvas, Teams, Google Classroom, One Note, Edmodo, Schoolology, Blackboard, Sway, Brightspace, and Power school. The paid versions include tons of added features and are worth exploring more if you find yourself using Flipgrid regularly.

 

How do you use Flipgrid in your classroom?

Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know. Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do! Yours In Education! Time To Teach

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'Do They Kick Out Pregnant People?' Navigating College With Kids

We believe in thanking our sources! This post was sourced from the following blog/website: https://www.npr.org/2019/05/02/716123170/do-they-kick-out-pregnant-people-navigating-college-with-kids?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=education

The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!

(Picture credit: Elissa Nadworny/NPR) Nearly 4 million school students are raising children -- a fifth of all undergraduates. They have better grades than their peers with no children but are not as likely to graduate. What can schools do?

Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know. Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do! Yours In Education! Time To Teach

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'This Is Not Who We Are,' Colorado Officials Say After Deadly School Shooting

We believe in thanking our sources! This post was sourced from the following blog/website: https://www.npr.org/2019/05/08/721474989/this-is-not-who-we-are-colorado-officials-say-after-deadly-school-shooting?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=education

The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!

Schoolchildren stand in a line near the STEM School in Highlands Ranch during a shooting at the Colorado school, in an image obtained by Reuters via social media.

One student, identified as Kendrick Ray Castillo, was killed when he reportedly tried to tackle one attacker. The shooting came weeks after the 20th anniversary of the shooting in nearby Columbine.

(Image credit: Shreya Nallapati via Reuters)

Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know. Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do! Yours In Education! Time To Teach

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'My Kids Are In Survival Mode': A Chat With 2019's Teacher Of The Year

We believe in thanking our sources! This post was sourced from the following blog/website: https://www.npr.org/2019/04/30/718396487/-my-kids-are-in-survival-mode-a-chat-with-the-2019-teacher-of-the-year?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=education

The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!

Rodney Robinson is the 2019 National Teacher of the Year. He teaches in a juvenile detention center in Richmond, Va.

Rodney Robinson, a teacher at a juvenile detention center in Richmond, Va., and the 2019 National Teacher of the Year, talks about needing diverse teachers and a culturally relevant curriculum.

(Image credit: Steve Helber/AP)

Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know. Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do! Yours In Education! Time To Teach

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GeoGuessr- Build critical thinking skills with this map-based game

We believe in thanking our sources! This post was sourced from the following blog/website: http://ilearntechnology.com/wordpress/?p=5879

The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!

What it is: GeoGuessr is a fun map-based game where students get virtually “dropped” somewhere in the world, and must explore the landscape around them through Google Street View to determine where in the world they are. When they’ve determined where in the world they are, they click on the world map to make a guess. Students will be shown the actual location they are, as well as how far off they were from the correct location.

How to integrate GeoGuessr into the classroom: GeoGuessr is a fun way to challenge your students to use context clues, think critically, ask questions, and learn geography. It’s also a great way to help them explore the world from your classroom! I think GeoGuessr is best as a small group or class activity where students can work collaboratively to solve the challenge together. Begin by exploring on a projector-connected computer or classroom devices. Ask students what they notice about where they’ve been dropped. What does the landscape look like? What natural features do they notice? What kind of climate would they guess they are in? What do the street signs look like? Do they see any clues that might help them? Next, invite students to ask questions (they don’t need any answers…sometimes the questioning process helps us ask better questions or notice new things!). Narrow down the part of the world students think they are in and make a guess. How close were they (this could lead to a mini-lesson on distance conversions)? GeoGuessr would make a great thinking prompt to start any class with. This exercise could take 10-15 minutes and jump-start your students in critical thinking and problem-solving. It’s a great way to model noticing, inquiry, using context clues, and thinking critically as they solve problems. All skills that are useful for any kind of learning!

GeoGuessr would also make a fun morning pages writing prompt. Students must write a story, poem, descriptive writing, etc. about where they’ve been dropped.

Tips: Want to create your own GeoGuessr challenges? You could create a challenge that reinforces any theme or topic. Sign up for a GeoGuessr Pro account.

Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know. Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do! Yours In Education! Time To Teach

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Inkscape: Draw Freely

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The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!

What it is: Inkscape is like the open source version of Adobe Illustrator. What really sets Inkscape apart is its use of  Scalable Vector Graphics as it’s native format. Oh yeah, and it’s free. Because open source!!  Beyond being free (cost) it’s also free because it’s free to distribute, and you’re free to check out its open code. Which is pretty neat if you’re into that kind of thing. Inkscape is cross-platform so it’s easy to run on Windows, Mac, or Linux. Open source is basically the Golden Goose for education. Not only can you and your students use it (because the price point is right), but you can also geek out over how it is built (take a look under the hood!).  Inkscape lets students bring their doodles and sketches to life so that their designs are ready for publication in print or on the web in a highly digital format.

How to integrate Inkscape into the classroom: Your students want to create. Inkscape makes it possible to turn their ideas into high-quality digital illustrations. Inkscape can literally enhance any classroom. Any time your students want to create a visual representation, poster, pamphlet, website graphic, a graphic of any kind, Inkscape is a great platform for them to use. Flexible drawing tools mean that digital drawing is limitless. If students can dream it, they can create it with Inkscape.

Just because you aren’t an Inkscape expert, doesn’t mean that your students can’t be. Learning resources and tutorials help your students learn independently and get the most out of Inkscape.

Tips: If your students are asking for Adobe design tools but it just isn’t in the budget, Inkscape is definitely worth introducing to your school/classroom/students!

Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know. Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do! Yours In Education! Time To Teach

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The surveillance of our youth

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The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!

Big BrotherLike many school districts, the Southeast Polk School District in Pleasant Hill, Iowa monitors the Web usage of its students on district-provided computers for inappropriate activity. And like some school districts, Southeast Polk also uses a monitoring service that sends weekly emails to parents summarizing their students’ Internet search history. This raises some difficult issues because we know that young people need space away from the heavy thumb of adults for healthy identity formation and the development of self. 

Why do teenagers go to the mall, or congregate at the park, or cruise the strip, or gravitate toward the online spaces where adults aren’t? Because they need spaces that are separate from us. Should we monitor every single book or online resource that our children read? Should we use biometric school lunch checkout systems so that we can see exactly what our children eat for lunch each day? Should we dig through our children’s belongings and rooms every morning after they leave for school to see if they’re doing something that they shouldn’t? Should we install RFID and GPS tags into our children’s clothing and backpacks so that we can track them in real time? Should we slap lifelogging cameras on our kids and review them every evening? Should we install keystroke logging software or monitor everything that youth search for on the Internet? Which of these makes you uncomfortable and which doesn’t?

We can think of numerous reasons why students might search the Internet for things that they don’t want their parents to know about, just like they talk daily about things that they don’t want their parents to know about. For instance, perhaps there is a gay boy who’s struggling to make sense of things but is not ready to come out to his family yet. Or a teenage girl with liberal politics in an ultraconservative family. Or a young couple that is pregnant and searching for information and options before they tell their parents. Or a teen who’s in a spat with a peer but doesn’t want clueless adults stepping in and creating more drama. Or any teen or tween with normal adolescent concerns who just needs some information, resources, or nonlocal empathy and connection. Do these students deserve some space? Do they deserve a presumption of privacy? Or should they immediately and automatically be outed by school software?

danah boyd asks some important questions about youth privacy, including Who has the right to monitor youth? and Which actors continue to assert power over youth? She also notes that:

Just because teens’ content is publicly accessible does not mean that it is intended for universal audiences nor does it mean that the onlooker understands what they see. . . . How do we leverage the visibility of online content to see and hear youth in a healthy way? How do we use the technologies that we have to protect them rather than focusing on punishing them? . . . How do we create eyes on the digital street? How do we do so in a way that’s not creepy?

Similarly, First Monday notes:

The right to privacy is stipulated in Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [and] Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as numerous international and regional human rights treaties and conventions [and has been found to be a protected Constitutional right by the U.S. Supreme Court]. The right to privacy essentially protects the integrity of the individual and his or her home, family, and correspondence. A common denominator for the different areas of privacy is access control: thus control over what others know about us; control over private decisions and actions; and control over a physical space. The right to privacy builds on the presumption that a zone of autonomy around the individual is central to individual freedom and self-determination.

Should school districts be complicit in the hypersurveillance of our young people? What messages do we send our students when we monitor their every action and send out weekly reports? Are we creating digital social graphs for our children and then placing them in the hands of commercial vendors? Are we intentionally instituting oppositional and distrustful stances against our own students? Are we fostering the creation of graduates who will shrug at the infringement of their civil liberties as adults because their families and educators have done so for years?

I wonder if there’s an opt out for families that don’t want to Big Brother or helicopter parent their children…

See also

Image credit: Big Brother is watching you, Photon

Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know. Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do! Yours In Education! Time To Teach

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SAM Labs blocks put students in charge of creative learning

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The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!

SAM Labs Alpha Kit empowering kids to be creative in learning

What it is: Recently, the good people at SAM Labs sent me an Alpha Kit to play with and review. You guys, this is such a cool product! I love that as soon as students open it up, it puts them in charge of the learning. Best of all, it encourages the learning to happen through playful trial and error. Each SAM Labs Kit comes with clever little blocks that each does something specific (think switches, light sensors, temperature sensors, DC motors, etc.). These little blocks interact with the SAM Labs app and empower students to become the inventors of great ideas. Through these 17 blocks (the Alpha Kit comes with 4 of the 17 blocks), students get a front row learning experience to delve into programming, logic, and analytical skills while they express themselves creatively and become problem solvers. The uses of the blocks are seriously endless, paired with the app they can do anything from composing music, to creating a remote controlled car, to exploring temperature, to auto-tweeting or post to Facebook. You can play with these little blocks all day long and keep coming up with new combinations of things to do with them (in fact, I did!). I’m imagining all of the new directions SAM Labs could take our inquiry blocks this year!

How to integrate SAM Labs into the classroom: SAM Labs boasts itself as a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) tool. And it is. But SAM blocks are so flexible, that I think that they reach beyond these few subjects. When I look at the blocks, I see endless inquiry possibilities. Yes, students will learn programming basics, how motors and light sensors work, how to use logic to build if/then type scenarios. But students will see more possibilities with these open-ended blocks. SAM Labs has a great collection of lesson plans to get you and your students started if you like, but like Legos, I like to see what the students come up with BEFORE they get the prescriptive input from the adults. They will come up with things we wouldn’t have dreamed of and then we can let the iteration begin! Speaking of Legos, the SAM Labs components snap together seamlessly with Legos. I’m telling you, the sky is the limit with these! I adore tools that are flexible for any classroom, capitalize on student ingenuity and imagination, and give students the power to dream big. Using the SAM Labs blocks students can explore light and temperature, compose songs, experiment with resistance and friction, monitor plant life, create “smart” devices, test out properties of matter, begin to understand programming and patterns and learn about circuits.

I think Anastasis students are going to find some pretty unique ways to hack these little blocks into something that hasn’t yet been imagined for an inquiry project or experiment!

Tips: The Alpha Kit that SAM Labs sent me to play with is impressive even with a limited number of bricks. For a classroom setting, I’ll definitely be purchasing more. These will be a hot commodity for student creations…no need to cause unnecessary arguments over whose turn it is to use them! (Top tip: we solve those kinds of arguments with dance-offs!)

 

Have you played with the SAM Labs blocks? What have your students dreamed up with them?

Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know. Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do! Yours In Education! Time To Teach

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The Countdown is On! 5Sigma Launch: The Power of Student Agency (featuring keynote speaker @gcouros)

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The following is a new blog post related to education and teaching and relevant to our website visitors. The blog post is not based on the opinions or values of our company but is related to education and teaching, so we wanted to share it with YOU! If you ever have any questions please let us know. Now… on to the post!

We are in full-on countdown mode for our yearly education conference, 5Sigma. It’s hard to believe that it is just 10 days away! This year our theme is Launch: The Power of Student Agency.

I could not be more excited for our fifth annual conference! Each year we work to include educators who have inspired our work. This year is no exception. We have a pretty incredible lineup! Including George Couros (Author of Innovator’s Mindset) as our Keynote! I’m so thankful for the way that each of the people you see below have shaped me, and inspired me. I know they will do the same for you!

Some things that you can look forward to at the 5Sigma Edu Conference:

  1. We will spoil you (because you do hard work every day, and deserve a weekend of being spoiled).
  2. You will leave inspired, changed, and with practical ways to “launch” (did you see the lineup below? I mean….)
  3. Two incredible food trucks including the famous Mac ‘N Cheese truck!!
  4. Happy hour meet up (because we are convinced that the Happy Hour is Education’s Magic Bullet).
  5. You will see what happens when students are empowered (we can’t wait for you to meet the students of Anastasis, they are seriously the COOLEST! *slight bias*)
  6. The opportunity to talk shop: have you ever dreamed of starting a school? Re-imagining assessment? Throwing away the one-size-fits-all curriculum? Ditching homework? Ditching the test?  Team Anastasis will share how we’ve done it, what we’ve learned along the way, share our insight into what not to do, and be transparent.

We’re excited to meet you! If you haven’t already registered, it isn’t too late! Learn more and register at http://5sigmaeducon.com  If you need help requesting the professional development dollars to attend, we are happy to help out, customize our template letter.

Friday Breakout Sessions
  • Don’t Get Ready; Get Started! with Noah Geisel
  • Strategic PD Planning with Design Thinking
    with Alex Inman
  • Students as Curators: Moving From Student to Learner with Nancy White
  • Tomorrow Was Yesterday with Kyle Erlenbeck
  • Maker Centered Learning with Colin Reynolds
  • Ingredients of Modern Instructional Design
    with Bob Dillon & Kristina Ishmael
Saturday Breakout Sessions1
  • Finding Motivation with Kristina Ishmael & Zac Chase
  • A Computer Science State of Mind 
    with Jeremy Macdonald
  • Honoring Student Agency Through Assessment Practices with Kelly Tenkely
  • Maker Centered Learning with Colin Reynolds
  • Cultivating Creative Thinking – It’s Not Just
    for Art Class!
    with Michelle Baldwin
  • A Computer Science State of Mind with
    Jeremy Macdonald

Time To Teach reviews each blog post by our contributors but if you feel this is a blog post better suited for another page please let us know. Teachers and Educators are our heroes. We want to thank you for the work you do! Yours In Education! Time To Teach

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