edTechCCPS

Your End-of-Year Tech List: Closing Out Your Digital Classroom Just as you close out your physical classroom for the year, you should also close out your digital classroom.  To help you do so, we have created the following Tech List, with helpful links and hints. ✔ Task Tips Helpful Links Google Classrooms Archive your Google classrooms to prevent students from unmonitored posting.   If you delete a class, you no longer have access to posts or its associated resources. Written Video Edmodo Classrooms Archive your Edmodo classrooms to prevent students from unmonitored posting. If you delete a class, you no longer have access to posts or its associated resources. Directions Google Drive (Students) Have students create a folder labeled 2017-18 and drag all of their current docs and folders into it to “clean-up” their drive. Directions Google Drive (Teachers) Take some ti...

Watching math and science teachers integrate Makerspace activities into their classrooms has been both inspiring and confounding. Knowing how excited my students were by the opportunity to build, create, and innovate made me want to include Makerspace ideas in my lessons. However, I was stuck with the question, How do I give this a Language Arts spin ? Brainstorming and Preparation Process Once I set my mind to the idea of a Makerspace, I spent a great deal of time perusing Pinterest for different ideas for hands-on, Language Arts ideas. Finding a variety of activities was key for me, which had the potential to send me down a rabbit hole. Thankfully, I met with my integrator, Althea Hudson, as part of my brainstorming process as well. Between the two of us, we were able to find several different activities for my students. As another layer of my preparation, I met with two other teachers who had previously run Maker Stations in their classrooms. Their number one suggestion wa...

Choices, Choices, Choices!  When you walk down the toothpaste aisle at your local grocery store, there are so many choices.  Decades ago, you had two choices:  Colgate and Crest.  Now we have to choose between the brand and variety: cavity protection or whitening, gel or paste, mint or bubble gum, and so on. Our students are born in a day and age where they have numerous choices, and, with technology, they can research and find the best choice that suits their needs.  Well, education should not be any different. Choice boards and student menus are excellent avenues that allow for student choice, but still give you, the instructor, an idea on how students are learning and mastering specific content. Choice Boards A choice board is a graphic organizer that allows students to decide how they will learn a concept or demonstrate mastery of content. Choice boards focus on students' interests, abilities, and needs.  In the example below, you can see the s...