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...

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...

Why is playtime important for students? We often recognize the need at the elementary level, but even secondary students can greatly benefit from playtime during the school day. According to Dr. Hilary Conklin (Time.com) Playtime Isn’t Just for Preschoolers—Teenagers Need It, Too (2015). Meet Evo + Bit, ozobot.com/img/products/products/tile-color-codes.ab0d3c62.jpg. She says, “Giving students occasions to learn through play not only fosters creative thinking, problem solving, independence, and perseverance, but also addresses teenagers’ developmental needs for greater independence and ownership in their learning, opportunities for physical activity and creative expression, and the ability to demonstrate competence. When classroom activities allow students to make choices relevant to their interests, direct their own learning, engage their imaginations, experiment with adult roles, and play physically, research shows that students become more motivated and interested, and they e...

      Student portfolios are a great way to reinforce the use, retention and application of curriculum as a student-centered activity. There are many types of portfolios but the flexibility and simplicity of using the New Google Sites makes this an ideal application. Google Sites makes it easy for students to collect and organize their work created in the G Suite ecosystem into one place. There is a very low learning curve with New Google Sites, and the simple designs give the published website a polished, professional feel. Whether working individually or collaboratively in groups on projects, teachers will find that students are highly engaged and self-motivated with the plethora of opportunities for demonstrating their learning within their own learning style. Why an e-portfolio?      With the New Google Sites, you can incorporate aspects of the engagement of kinesthetic learning with the efficiency of digital usage. An e-portfolio in the N...