EDge21 Favorite: Common Core Toolkit for Principals

Gerald Aungst, Supervisor of Gifted and Elementary Mathematics at School District of Cheltenham Township in Pennsylvania, is developing a Common Core Toolkit for Principals.

Since January, Aungst has been presenting a monthly four-part package of resources and activities principals can use for their own, as well as their staff's, professional development.

The parts of each package are:

1. Think: A warm up article, blog post, or video to set the stage for a faculty discussion.

2. Share: Two activities principals can use with staff members during the month in faculty or team meetings.

3. Test Drive: A key instructional practice that teachers can try out in their classrooms without expectations.

4. Explore: Links to other resources with more information for those who want to dig deeper.

Though these Common Core Toolkit for Principals packages are mainly directed towards the particular needs of Aungst's own district, others might find them useful.

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First posted 4-24-2013

EDge21 Favorite: RealtimeBoard

RealtimeBoard is an online tool for creating and implementing real-time visual presentation and collaboration.

RealtimeBoard online whiteboards can enrich your lessons:

• Use whiteboards to dynamically draw your lessons.
• Discuss the tasks with students either in or out of the classroom.
• Access boards any time from everywhere.
• Make a rich presentation to share with your class.

Create a new board from a template or from scratch. You can upload your own images or use images from the RealtimeBoard library of vector images. Add videos to your boards by pasting YouTube or Vimeo links. Use the mark-up tools to draw, create text, and make sticky notes.

RealtimeBoard works with Google Drive, too. Drag-and-drop files from Google Drive onto your boards. With a Chrome extension, grab images from websites and web searches right to the RealtimeBoard library.

 Watch a video demo of RealtimeBoard

Share your RealtimeBoard public boards, or keep boards private. Invite colleagues to share boards. Set access rights: editors can make changes to your boards, viewers cannot.

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First posted 5-21-2013

EDge21 Favorite: The Math Board Game

The mission of The Math Board Game™ is “to help teachers and parents effectively educate their students and children in math by engaging them with a fun and unique learning tool.”



The Math Board Game was developed from the idea that games stimulate children’s minds and engage them in their own learning. The Math Board Game was designed so that students will enjoy playing the game and simultaneously learn math content which meets the Common Core standards.

The Math Board Game is intended to reinforce the Common Core math standards for students in grades 3-8 (aged 8-13). This game is a powerful, engaging resource for teachers to use in their classroom with their students as both a learning tool and a preparation for the Common Core standards assessments. Students compete individually or as a team to answer math procedure questions and perform math tasks, with the goal of moving around a colorful math game board and making it to the finish first.



Teachers can set up the game to focus on a single domain for a single grade level, or can mix-and-match the domains and grade levels, as appropriate. Review concepts from a previous grade level or extend learning into higher grade levels.

 Watch a video of 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade math students playing The Math Board Game

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First posted 2-6-2013

EDge21 Favorite: mQlicker

 

mQlicker is a free audience response system (classroom/student response system) using cheap, accessible, and readily available mobile and web technologies.

mQlicker enables the examination of an audience's knowledge, opinions, ratings, and so forth making it a useful tool for interacting with audiences in a variety of situations such as classrooms, conferences, and meetings.

mQlicker offers a range of engagement activities from standard multiple choice questions to open ended text responses. Instant feedback through the use of mobile devices can be used to test an understanding of the lesson's topic, to gauge the audience's views or opinions, to get to know the conference's profile, and to allow participants to express preferences.

A unique Session Key is generated when an interaction is started . The Session Key is then distributed to the audience who uses it in the mQlicker audience interface to provide responses via tablets or smartphones. Individual, anonymous responses are collected as they come from iPads, iPhones, Android, Blackberry, and Kindle devices and instantly collated into session results that are presented graphically. Text responses can be presented in the form of sticky notes that can be moved around to allow grouping into sets for commenting or discussion.

Core mQlicker functions are available for free. All that is needed to access mQlicker is to create a user account. No special hardware is necessary. Your PC, smartphone, or tablet (either iOS or Android) is supported.

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First posted 1-16-2013

The Rearview Mirror 8-24-2013

For those of you who may have missed an EDge21 featured post or who didn't have the opportunity to look at some of them during this past week, here's a second chance.

Monday

Slides is designed to allow anyone with a web browser to create and share beautiful presentations for free.

Tuesday

MineralsEd was created to assist teachers in developing educational materials to teach about minerals, mining, and Earth science in the classroom.

Wednesday

BusyTeacher is a place where English teachers share their printable worksheets, lesson plans, and other lesson activities with colleagues for free.

Thursday

Create visual stories in support of learning, social modeling, and early literacy withKid in Story Book Maker.

Once is Never Enough

During the next two weeks (August 26 through September 5), as most of you are getting settled back into school, EDge21 will be "rerunning" some of the most popular posts from thus far in 2013.

These posts drew high numbers of viewers when they first appeared, and include Common Core Toolkit for Principals, Math Board Game, Word Mover, and others.

-- New featured "first-run" posts will return September 9.

Poll Everywhere Rolls Out New Features for BTS

Poll Everywhere, which first appeared on EDge21 last year, uses mobile devices, the Web, and Twitter to create stylish real-time response experiences.

Poll Everywhere has been busy this summer integrating several new features that will be of special interest to educators:

• Countdown timer - Let your students know exactly how much time they have to respond.
• Anonymous polling - Run sensitive polls and rest easy that the responses stay fully anonymous.
• Live word clouds - Display your students’ responses in a live word cloud that updates in real time. 
• Organize your students - Group registered students into classes so you get a clear view of who's voting and how.
• LMS integration - Manage rosters through your LMS (currently works with Canvas, more on the way).
• New mystery poll type - Wow your class with a brand new poll type coming soon.

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Featured: 8-22-2013 Kid in Story Book Maker

Create visual stories in support of learning, social modeling, and early literacy with Kid in Story Book Maker.

Place your student’s picture on every page of the story using Kid in Story Book Maker’s templates. It's easy and fun to make any child the star character. You can also write your own custom story or modify any of the templates.

Kid in Story Book Maker was specifically designed to benefit children who use visual narratives to complement auditory directions, model task analysis and expected social behavior, reinforce routines and to engage struggling readers.

The free Kid in Story Reader allows teachers and parents to share stories they create with students, friends, and family via email or Dropbox.

 Watch the Kid in Story Demo

Kid in Story Book Maker is available from the iTunes App Store for $6.99 (USD). It is compatible with iPad and requires iOS 5.1 or later.

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Featured: 8-21-2013 BusyTeacher

BusyTeacher is a place where English teachers share their printable worksheets, lesson plans, and other lesson activities with colleagues for free.

BusyTeacher serves up more than 10,000 downloadable, printable worksheets created by real teachers for teachers. The worksheets are categorized by topics such as grammar, listening, speaking, vocabulary, and more.

You will also find such useful items as free puzzle creators, classroom posters, coloring pages, and flashcards.

 Watch a video introducing BusyTeacher

BusyTeacher has nearly half a million registered users. You can join for free or log in using a Facebook account.

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Featured: 8-20-2013 MineralsEd

MineralsEd was created to assist teachers in developing educational materials to teach about minerals, mining, and Earth science in the classroom.

A partnership program between teachers and the minerals industry in British Columbia, MineralsEd's goals are to "foster a well-informed public through school education based on accurate and balanced minerals information, and to stimulate young peoples' interest in minerals industry careers."

MineralsEd offers teachers:

• A monthly email newsletter.
• A comprehensive and searchable Teacher Resources database.
• Instructional workshops for teachers' professional development.
• Classroom workshops, outreach programs, and more for your class.

MineralsEd is working towards developing the student section of the website into a more interactive and fun space to learn about Earth sciences, BC's mineral resources, the crucial role of minerals in everyday life, and the responsible use of these resources.

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Featured: 8-19-2013 Slides

Slides is designed to allow anyone with a web browser to create and share beautiful presentations for free.

The Slides editor is available in your browser. All of your work is stored securely on their servers and accessible wherever you have an Internet connection. Decks(presentations) are stored as HTML documents, so you can always edit the markup and customize to your needs.

 

 

You are the only one who can see your Slides presentations unless you choose to publish your work, which makes it available to everyone. You can embed your decks anywhere you'd like.

 

Slides presentations can be viewed in any modern browser, including on most mobile devices. Presentations are optimized for touch devices.

 

A free Slides account allows only for public decks and provides 250 MB of storage. The $7 (USD) per month Pro account gives you 2 GB of storage, private decks, Dropbox sync, PDF export, and more.

 

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Things I Like: FACTSlides

FACTSlides is a minimalist, single-purpose website offering interesting and entertaining bits of random knowledge in a PowerPoint-like deck of slides.

Aesthetically pleasing, each slide is graphically attractive and includes animation. You can advance through the slides manually or automatically. You can also choose fact categories from the selections on the bottom of the screen.

FACTSlides includes a source link at the bottom of each slide for verification.

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Created with Blogsy

The Rearview Mirror 8-17-2013

For those of you who may have missed an EDge21 featured post or who didn't have the opportunity to look at some of them during this past week, here's a second chance.

Monday

Sketchlot is a web-based whiteboard for schools that allows teachers and students to connect, collaborate, and share.

Tuesday

Flowboard is a free iPad app that lets you create side-scrolling presentations with text, images, video, and links.

Wednesday

Hopscotch and Daisy the Dinosaur are two free iPad apps designed to help young children begin to learn to code

Thursday

Tynker is a computing platform designed specifically to teach children programming skills and computational thinking in a fun and imaginative way.

Featured: 8-15-2013 Tynker

Tynker is a computing platform designed specifically to teach children programming skills and computational thinking in a fun and imaginative way. 

 

 

The visual nature of Tynker makes learning programming easier. Kids build games and mobile apps by manipulating blocks of code. The need to know programming syntax is removed. As kids learn fundamental skills, Tynker introduces more and more advanced concepts including syntax driven programming.

 

 

For educators, Tynker Scholastic offers lesson plans, interactive tutorials, assessments, and class management tools for grades 3-8. Tynker's browser-based platform allows students to use Tynker anywhere they have internet access.

 

 Watch Tynker for Schools

 

Tynker was created by experienced technology users to encourage their own children, as well as others, to understand and enjoy programming through building games and mobile apps, creating music, animating drawings, and more.

 

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Featured: 8-14-2013 Hopscotch / Daisy the Dinosaur

Hopscotch and Daisy the Dinosaur are two free iPad apps designed to help young children begin to learn to code.

 

Hopscotch is a free, visually appealing, easy-to-use programming language that allows kids to unleash their creativity and create their own games and animations.

 

 

Drag and drop method blocks into scripts, then press 'Play' to see your code in action. As the student becomes more advanced, add more objects and use custom events, such as shaking and tilting the iPad, to run the code. 

 

 See a video about Hopscotch

 

Hopscotch requires iOS 5.0 or later.

 

---

 

Daisy the Dinosaur is a free, fun app with an easy drag-and-drop interface that kids of all ages can use. Students learn the basics of computer programming by animating Daisy to dance across the screen. 

 

 

Kids will intuitively grasp the basics of objects, sequencing, loops and events by solving this app's challenges. After playing Daisy, kids can choose to download a kit to program their own computer game.

 

 Watch a video about Daisy the Dinosaur

 

Daisy the Dinosaur requires iOS 3.2 or later.

 

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Featured: 8-13-2013 Flowboard

Flowboard is a free iPad app that lets you create side-scrolling presentations with text, images, video, and links.

 

 

 

Create each screen of a Flowboard using simple touch gestures. Add buttons, videos, and galleries for interactivity. Present your Flowboard and let others explore, using the interactive features, on your iPad, online, or offline.

 

Create Flowboards with content on your iPad or from the cloud. Add photos and videos from Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive; pictures from Facebook or Instagram; and use Google Image Search, as well.

 

Flowboard automatically saves your presentations locally as you make changes, and you can save drafts to the cloud, so your presentation is always safe.

 

 

Present straight from your iPad, connect to a projector, or mirror using AirPlay. You can share your Flowboard to other iPad users and the web by a URL that can be posted anywhere.

 

 Watch a Flowboarddemo from TechCrunch

 

Flowboard is free to download and use (Requires iOS 6.0 or later). Premium increases your monthly upload quota to 1GB, with bigger file upload sizes, and the ability to upload PDF files. Currently, a subscription for Flowboard Premium is $5(USD) per month. 

 

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Featured: 8-12-2013 Sketchlot

Sketchlot is a web-based whiteboard for schools that allows teachers and students to connect, collaborate, and share.

 

 

Teachers create a sketch and share it with their students. The students mark it up and share it back. Any sketch created using Sketchlot can be shared with any member of your class, using the share feature.  Students can create pieces of work using their own devices and share it to you.

 

 

Teachers add students to their own Sketchlot account so no student sign up is needed. As a teacher you create an account with a unique class code. Next, add your students to your network. Your students will log in using the class code and their own password (which you can view and change).

 

 Watch a Sketchlotdemo

 

Sketchlot requires no plugin, installation, or app. It should work on any modern computer, smartphone, or tablet. 

 

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