Mrs. Jones Teaches

This week I had plans to do an app smash (when you use two different apps together for one project) for my tech project. However, I had problems with one of the apps, so today I am just going to share one. Hopefully I can share the other app next week as part 2.  I wanted to do a geology activity that joins real artifacts to help build students' schema, nonfiction books to help them investigate the artifacts, and technology. This is a set of three different types of rocks I have: sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic. I also have these wonderful books. The Street Beneath My Feet  by Charlotte Guillain and Yuval Zommer folds out and shows a cross-section of the earth and what is found beneath our feet. Rocks; Hard, Soft, Smooth and Rough  by Natalie M. Rosinsky and Matthew John helps students identify some rocks by their characteristics.  I made three videos to explain each of the three different types of rocks. The students can then scan an image...

Nearpod is a tool for teachers to create presentations that can be shared with students in live class mode, or at student self-pace. I thought the learning curve on this was very easy, and I created a presentation pretty quickly. Nearpod Silver edition is free, and Nearpod Gold costs $12 per month. Among other differences, with Silver you can have a class of up to 30 and cannot do student self-paced mode. I created a presentation about perimeter and area of squares and rectangles. Here it is: To start a presentation, just click on Create your own lesson: Next, choose from Add Content, Add Web Content or Add Activity. There are many different options for content and activities to add. I started by adding a video. You simply insert the share address of the youtube video under Add Web Content. Next, I added an interactive simulation from content. It is an area builder game. This slide is a collaborate slide. In live mode, the students' answers are posted ...

This week I chose to learn more about Edpuzzle. I chose it because teachers use video so much these days, and I like the idea of being able to add to videos in case the video I want to use doesn't have all the information I need. Edpuzzle is a service that allows teachers to edit videos to use in the class. You can crop the video, add voice over (this removes the audio track for the entire video and replaces it with your audio), add audio note (the video stops and plays a recorded message from the teacher), or add a quiz. There are three options for a quiz: open-ended questions, multiple-choice questions and comments). In any of the questions, you can add an image or a web link. Students can also use Edpuzzle. There is an option for a teacher to create a project and assign it to students. Then the students can make a video to share their learning, and it would be great to use with project-based learning. This is the video I made: This week I also decided to do a screencast ...

Videos in the Classroom Videos have so many amazing applications in the classroom. And it's so easy to create one that even I can do it. As for students, I suspect that many kids will say  more about a subject than they would be willing to write  about it. Who among us hasn't had writer's block from looking at a piece of paper? There are also a lot of kids who hate the physical act of writing with a pencil, and taking that away chore frees them to share their thoughts. Of course they need to practice writing, but it's ok to separate writing from sharing thoughts once in a while. Teachers can use videos to share student work with the class as a group. And yes, you can still put student work on the wall when it is a video by using a QR code (I have just recently discovered QR codes, and I love them!) Videos are useful for students who are shy or selectively mute, because it removes a lot of the pressure of performing in front of a group. They can practice and re-rec...