Beautiful Messaging

I recently came across the tool Pablo by Buffer as a great way to create some really awesome communication graphics.  While intended to be used for social media, I have found it a great resource for creating creative graphic slides for the message boards in our libraries.  While the feature to add quotes easily from the bank of available quotes is awesome, I to find that the ability to add my own text is more valuable.  The images are awesome and the search-ability make the tool really efficient. I have not only use this for our display screens but they make some great slides when inserted in a Google Slide presentation as well.  Give it a try!

Five for Friday - Resources I Just Had to Share

This week while working on the resources for the monthly Digital Teacher Challenge in my district, I spent some time digging into Apps.  Our theme for February is Get Appy!  I concentrated on apps for all different tools as we have Chromebooks (Chrome Webstore and connected Apps), iPads (iOS Apps), and Android Tablets (Google Play Apps).  Through this research I came across so many great resources both app and web-based, I thought it was a shame not to share here as well!  So here's Five for Friday!


Read with Me - This great app helps teachers to assess fluency in students using custom options.  Some of the custom features available in the app are the ability to add your own miscues, name the miscues in a way that makes sense and the ability to count or not count the miscue in the score of the student.  Additionally the reports look to be quite complete.  They are integrated with Google Sign-in and Schoology.


FlipQuiz - This jeopardy style review game is a simple fee way to make review games with kids.  Find quizzes already built or create your own.  You can add answers to the game board if you choose so that you can be hands-free and host the game as you walk around the room.  Because all the answers are built in, you have the ability to send students a link to the game and they can play and review at home!  This is a free resource but with the PRO version you will  will get in-game score keeping, the ability to add your personal images, and many other features.

Hstry -This great resources allows you or your students to build a historical timeline rich with media (images, video and audio) in addition to the engagement features of commenting and quizzes or checks for understanding.  Timelines can then be shared and easily embedded on a website or blog using the embed code generated on the site.  With the free service you can have 200 student timelines.  Explore this amazing timeline from their site on Life in the Colonies.

Algebra Calculator  - This great resource is a calculator that gives a student step-by-step help on algebra problems.  Students can use this to enter a problem and instead of the calculator generating just the answer, it generates each of the steps to get to the final answer with a short explanation of what those steps entailed.

Periodic Table - Chemistry Tools  This is a free interactive app for exploring chemical elements and their dependencies in the periodic table.  The app allows students to see the elements in various ways and makes the periodic table interactive.  See the elements, details, atomic structure, boiling point and more.  Student s can sort by properties, classification or state.

Quizizz - Make Learning Fun!

There are a number of review tools available for teachers to use to add interest to studying information.  I hear the sounds of Kahoot, Socrative and Formative and I get encouraged by the excitement that is stirred in students through gamifying studying that I remember being boring a laborious.  Another resource that I came across on Twitter today adds to the growing number of resources that can be used to encourage the excitement.
Quizizz allows for multi-player practice encouraging collaboration.  It does require that students under the age of 13 have parent permission, but it also has a way for students to play without registration.  Similar to other resources, once a teacher initiates a quiz, a code is generated for the quiz in which students enter to play.  Students answer the questions at their own pace and once they complete the question set, the can review their answers while awaiting the rest of the class to finish.  Quizziz has many already created question sets of which you can try out.  Give it a try.  Here's a quick video walk through.

Additionally, Quizziz has added a feature for homework in which you can launch a quiz using the homework feature that will allow you to set a deadline for the homework.  The assignment displays live and the reports feature will tabulate during the window of which you set for the quiz.  They have recently added a feature to this that allows students to resume a homework game that they may have started before.  This would be a great test review in which students begin in class and then finish at home!

Quizizz keeps a blog with some great tips that is worth checking out.  I'd love to hear from anyone who give this resource a try!  Let me know how it goes!