Thursday, March 21, 2019

OneClass

OneClass is a fantastic all-in-one solution for students looking for homework help, study guides, class notes, online tutors and more.  OneClass has a simple to use polished interface that makes it easy for students looking for help in any number of subjects by a wide variety of resources.  Finally, OneClass recently released a new feature called, "Homework Help" that lets students get detailed step-by-step solutions from experts in their field.

I highly recommend checking out Homework Help by clicking here!!!

Check out OneClass by clicking here.

Game Based Learning with TypeTastic

"Game-based learning (GBL) is a type of game play that has defined learning outcomes. Generally, game-based learning is designed to balance subject matter with gameplay and the ability of the player to retain, and apply said subject matter to the real world. (wikipedia)"  Game Based Learning has stood the test of time and been going on since schools have been around.  Lately, it's been getting more and more attention in the media and easier to integrate into the classroom through technology.  Not only is GBL making learning fun, through innovative technology and websites like TypeTastic, kids are easily learning vital real-world skills such as Typing/Keyboarding.


TypeTastic is an excellent K-12 site for students learning how to Type/Keyboard.  TypeTastic's School Edition has an educational portal that allows educators to track, monitor, and assess student progress.  This is a fun and great way to integrate technology into a classroom's curriculum.  TypeTastic uses over 400 innovative games, activities and drills to help teach and reinforce keyboarding/typing skills.

The expanded curriculum introduces students to more than 250 entertaining new keyboarding activities that move from locating letters to fluent typing in four fun steps:
  1. Explore the Keyboard: Unique keyboard visualization splits the letters into nine color-coded groups so students see the keyboard like a map and can quickly find the correct letters. 
  1. All Fingers Aboard: These games are designed to challenge kids to learn the fundamentals of typing. All sections are centered on finger movement, often first separated into either right- or left-hand activities, followed by more challenging games that use both hands.
  1. Ready, Set, Type!: Keyboarding activities take kids on an adventure through underwater coral reefs, thick jungle vegetation, and serene beach vistas to collect words and letters, with the goal of typing simple words and sentences. 
  1. Master Those Keys: In the final step, students dig into the secrets of fluent typing, challenging themselves with more complex words, building up their typing speed, and discovering numbers and symbols.
*TypeTastic was one of Technology & Learning's Top Sites/Apps of 2018 (click here)

Below is a brief demo...


I highly recommend checking out TypeTastic School Edition by clicking here!!!

For more detailed information on Game Based Learning click here.

Mr Rogers - "Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children playis serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood."

Monday, March 18, 2019

Kidaha

Kidaha is an excellent site for students, parents, or educators to find clip art.  This is ideal for students looking for educational clip art for school or for teachers looking for just the right type of art for their classroom or lesson.

I highly recommend checking out Kidaha by clicking here!!!

EDpuzzle

EDpuzzle the world's leading tool for "flipping" a classroom or lesson has been hard at work w/ new features and updates to make it easier and even better for teacher to integrate in their classroom.

Improved Features...
  • Main My Classes section:
    • Cleaner and simpler design.
    • Notifications which alerts teachers teachers to which assignments/videos requires a teachers attention.
  • Specific assignment page:
    • Easier to preview video for teachers to double-check videos.
    • Possibility to quickly edit the title of the assignments
    • Easy to update/change due date
  • Grading an assignment:
    • Teachers will now be able to see formulas and images when grading an assignment.
    • Teachers will be able to see the feedback they left in every question for easier grading
    • Option to quickly grade all answers as correct (TIME SAVER!)
    • Inclusion of time spent. This means that the teacher will know exactly how much time the students spent watching the video. This is ideal for 1:1 conversations with students to push them to work harder on their assignment to get better results.
  • Gradebook:
    • All teachers will now get access to this feature for free. It's not premium anymore. This means teachers will now be able to see the progress of their students across multiple videos with just one click. 
    • On top of that, teachers will be able to select the range of dates they want to have this information (weekly, monthly, quarterly, or picking the dates). 
    • Export all the grades to a CSV file.
    • To make grading easier, we have included a Total score and Total time spent across all the videos assigned to the student.
    • Ideal for formative or summative assessment.
  • Other
    • Enable teachers to assign to individual students. This is something that we have worked really hard to build. Teachers will be able to truly differentiate their instruction. Instead of assigning to a "class" in Edpuzzle, they will be able to assign to a few students.
    • Enable to create subgroups.
I highly recommend checking out EDpuzzle by clicking here!!!


*EDpuzzle is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Elementari


*UPDATE - An educational portal has been completed allowing educators to create student accounts (up to 30 for free) and approve all stories before being published!!!

Elementari is a wonderful new site for digital storytelling and project based learning that I just found out about from Larry Ferlarzzo's excellent blog.  Educators are using this easy-to-use tool to have students create interactive digital stories, digital portfolios, presentations, and even choose-your-own-adventures.  Stories can contain, custom made illustrations, sound effects, or even have a user record their very own audio.  Best of all, a teacher can customize an already created project as a template to help integrate into their own classroom.  Finally, a finished story can be embedded into a site/blog to help schools abide by COPPA/CIPA compliance.

Below is an example...



I highly recommend checking out Elementari by clicking here!!!



Socrates

Socrates is an innovate new site where educators can seamlessly differentiate instruction for each student through a unique game based learning system.  This is done through fun and engaging learning games w/ educational portal where teachers can track and monitor student progress, assign educational videos, use a digital badge system, testing, benchmarking, and much much more.

Below is a brief demo...



I highly recommend checking out Socrates by clicking here!!!

*Socrates is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

ThinkingApp

ThinkingApp is an innovative Chrome plugin/extension for keeping track of how long students spend on websites for assignments using Google Docs.  This is ideal for educators and students as it helps analyze how students are spending time on the web by keeping tack of each site and how much time is spent on it, helping teachers learn how their students are learning.  Best of all, once a student is finished w/ their assignment they can they turn in their logs w/ a click of a button.

Below is a brief demo...



I highly recommend checking out ThinkingApp by Learnics by clicking here!!!

Friday, March 15, 2019

Think Fluency

ThinkFluency is an oral reading fluency assessment app developed by a teacher for teachers.  ThinkFluency replaces the tedious paper, pencil and timer assessment with an app that enables teachers to quickly assess students’ Oral Reading Fluency Rate. ThinkFluency is easy to use, provides instant results with data that is easy to download and share, and is perfect for RTI and showing student growth. It comes with 6 passages each for grade levels 1-5, but users can add their own passages for the ultimate customized assessment tool. ThinkFluency gives users the option of going PAPERLESS. The student reads the passage from a second device as the teacher follows along in the app. When the student finishes reading, the results are displayed (only to the teacher) and saved so you are immediately ready to test the next student. ThinkFluency is FREE to try when you download the app.

Features included:
  • Paperless assessments
  • Smart diagnostics for developing individualized instruction plans
  • Spreadsheet data for sharing and tracking
  • Dashboard for quick view of student data
Saves valuable teacher time

I highly recommend checking out ThinkingFluency by clicking here!!!

*ThinkFluency is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Saturday, March 9, 2019

30hands Learning



30hands Learning is the excellent company for creating an innovative LMS (Learning Management System) as well as the popular mobile iOS app that is ideal for digital storytelling 30hands Pro.  The 30hands community is a perfect cloud based solution that allows educators to: manage/track students, hand in/out assignments, schedule events, and more.  While the mobile is being used in education for project based learning, digital storytelling, and more.

More features...

• Video clips as slides
• Google Drive + Dropbox Integration
• Importing of Google Slides and PDFs as 30hands slides
• Backgrounds and scenes
• Higher quality videos
• Advanced drag-and-drop drawing with editing 
• Slide sharing with parents and students 
• Slide Transitions 
• Unlimited presentations
• Unlimited saves to Camera Roll

For more info on how your school can participate, email info@30hands.com.
Join our newsletter here: http://30hands.com/newsletter.


*30hands Learning is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.