PowerSchool Email

If you use PowerSchool there is an easy way to send a mass email out to all of your students or parents!

Gmail Tips and Tricks

As a teacher, staying organized is half the battle! Follow these 3 easy steps to organize your Gmail and make your life easier!

Gmail Tips and Tricks

Holiday Activity

Looking for a fun end of semester holiday activity that will keep your students entertained without having to watch a movie? Try out my Do You Want to Build a Snowman activity. It allows students to build a digital snowman and write a story about him, with self-explanatory directions and videos!

Do You Want to Build a Snowman

Operation Save the Turkey

Check out my latest holiday-themed creation! Operation Save the Turkey has your students disguise a turkey to save him from becoming a Thanksgiving feast! They will also have to create a story to go with it.

Operation Save the Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gif Creation

I love teaching with gifs! They are fun ways of reaching your students and adding a little humor to your room. A lot of times I just search for gifs that I want to use but sometimes I can't find what I'm looking for. When that happens I use Recordit. It's a downloadable program that you can use to screen record and it automatically turns your video into a gif. If I want to make it even fancier, I make my creation on Apple's Keynote, then save it as a video. Keynote has some of the best animation features that can really make things come alive. Below is an example of a gif I made.

Here are the steps I used:

1. Type and add images in a Keynote presentation 

2. Add animation

3. Export presentation as a video file

4. Open recordit and record your video playing 

5. Once your gif is recorded open it (it will open in your preferred web browser - I like using Safari with my gifs)

6. On occasion, it will not automatically open as the gif file so you will need to click gif at the bottom

7. Click file - save as - and save it to your computer. 

8. From here you can upload it to your drive, LMS, etc. 

Low-Tech Ways of Preventing Plagiarism

Plagiarism is not only becoming more common but almost too easy for students. Since the majority of our students use their computers a simple mouse click can allow them to plagiarize. I spend a good portion of time at the very beginning of school going over plagiarism and how to avoid it but inevitably students will still try. So I have a few methods that I use to help make catching plagiarism that much easier!

Option 1:
Change your font styles to something different so that when they copy and paste something from a website the website's text will stick out. Believe it or not by that is how I catch 90% of my plagiarizers (they never change the font styles to match).

To make your new font automatic follow these steps (I use Georgia)

1. Type and adjust your font to look how you want and highlight it
2. Click normal text - normal text - update normal text to match
3. Click normal text - options - save as my default style

Option 2: 

When I create my assignments I typically create the answer key first. Then I make a copy of that document to become the one my students will fill out. Then I simply delete the answers from their copy. Whenever I do this I always make the answers in blue this way it's easy to see and I won't forget to delete the answers later. If I do this, when the students go to answer the questions their text will automatically appear in blue. Now some students will change it back to black but for the most part, this becomes a quick visual check for any signs that answers were copied and pasted. 

EdPuzzle Student Projects

Are you tired of lesson planning? Want to switch things up in your classroom? Try EdPuzzle Student Projects and let your students become a teacher for a day! Instead of finding the perfect video, creating questions, and then assigning it to your students have them create their own EdPuzzle videos!

Teacher Instructions - This presentation will walk you through how to use and create EdPuzzle Student projects!

Student Instructions - These are step-by-step directions that will walk your students through how to create their videos!

Happy Planning!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween can be a dreaded holiday for teachers because of behavior, sugar highs, and costumes. BUT it shouldn't be! As teachers, we are often overwhelmed by so much of our jobs that we sometimes forget to stop and enjoy! Holidays are the perfect time to take a break from teaching our curriculum and find ways of connecting with our students! I don't mean letting your class dissolve into chaos and feeding them lots of sugar but simply breaking up their daily routine.

Here's my agenda from this Haloween:

1. Halloween Bell Ringer
- Using Forms I ask them what their favorite Halloween costume is and what they are dressing up as this year.

2. History of Halloween Video
- I'm a history teacher so I had to sneak something in!
- Using History Channel I found a 2 min video clip!

3. Build a Jack-O-Lantern
- This is a fun project where students create their own Jack-O-Lantern and write a story about it
- I'm using the amazing Eric Curts' (Control Alt Achieve) presentation!
- To use this, click file + make a copy
- Be sure to check out Eric's website for more great ideas!

4. Mapping Activity
- After we finished all of our Halloween fun they went back to working on their normal assignments
- I played a kid-friendly Halloween playlist from YouTube to keep the fun going!

Classroom Jetsetters: How to Create Classroom Explorers

Feel like taking a tour around the world? Want to teach your students lessons in fun and meaningful ways? Use Google Tour Builder, My Maps, Expeditions, and Google Earth to create student projects and bring the world into your classroom! Instead of just talking about the world, break down the classroom walls and SHOW it to them!

bit.ly/classroomjetsetters

Drive Organization

Organization can be very helpful but very difficult to achieve! One of my favorite organizational tips with Google Drive is using emojis to name folders. Here is how you can accomplish this:

1. Open up a blank Doc
2. Click Insert
3. Choose Special Characters
4. Change the symbols to emoji
5. Choose the emoji you want
6. The emoji should appear on your doc, copy it
7. Open your Drive
8. Right click on your folder and choose rename
9. Paste the emoji

Stop Motion Video

Hi!

Looking for a fun project for your students to try? Stop motion videos are a fun way to engage your students. You can easily create these videos using Google Slides. Implementing this lesson in your classroom can be used as a formative assessment to measure student comprehension. Below is my sample lesson plan with student step-by-step directions. It also includes an example video that I created!

Stop Motion Video Lesson

Enjoy!

Noise Level Meter

Hi! Looking for a fun, interactive, and efficient classroom management tool to help control the noise level in your room? Try Bouncy Balls! I use a lot of group work, which can sometimes lead to a very noisy room. Instead of having to constantly remind students to be quieter, I let bouncy balls do it for me. The website will let students know when they are being too noisy. This way students can self-monitor themselves and the class. There are 4 different themes and you can adjust the sensitivity levels to fit your needs!

Nearpod

Looking for a fun way to engage your students during presentations? Create a lesson using Nearpod! Nearpod is a website that allows you to create interactive lessons with lots of fun possibilities!

Creating a Nearpod Lesson

Forms: The Magic of Self Grading Quizzes

Check out my presentation on how to use Google Forms to create assessments that automatically grade for you from the EdTechTeam Indiana Summit!

Forms: The Magic of Self Grading Quizzes

Engaging & Interactive Presentations

Check out my presentation on how to create engaging and interacting presentations from the EdTechTeam Indiana Summit!

Engaging & Interactive Presentations 

St. Patrick's Day

Looking for a fun St. Patrick's Day themed activity for your students? Try my build your own 4 leaf clover activity. The activity includes easy to follow directions for both teachers and students. This activity fits best with elementary or middle school ages.

St. Patrick's Day Activity 

Online Learning

Interested in using online learning in your classroom but not positive on where to start? Check out my training on what tools to start using with step by step guides!

Online Learning

Organizing your Gmail using labs

Looking for a quick and simple solution to staying on top of your never-ending emails? Watch this short video to learn how to install the unread mail lab feature in Gmail.

IDOE Digital Learning Month

I’m so excited to be featured by the Indiana Department of Education! Check out my video on EdPuzzle Student Projects!

Layal Olive Digital Learning Month Video

A Different Way to Review

Are you looking for a new way to review classroom material besides having your students play a review game? What if they had to create their own review game instead? Let your students become the teacher for the day and create their own review questions. This promotes critical thinking skills, helps them review their material, and by creating both the question and the answer they prove mastery over the topic. Check out my sample lesson plan below!


Create your own Quizizz

 

Slides & Pear Deck Update!

Hey! Looking for more Pear Deck fun! Pear Deck is now offering 25 templates for Slides! Create fun and engaging presentations that allow you to monitor your students' learning in real time!

Slides & Pear Deck Update

Hashtag What?: Top 10 #'s to Follow

Hi! Check out this post on how to use Twitter to your advantage! In this post, I provide a list of my top 10 hashtags that I follow and how to participate in Twitter chats!

Happy Tweeting!

Hashtag What?: Top 10 #'s to Follow

Digital Learning Month Videos

Hi! The Indiana Department of Education has put together a series of videos on teacher's favorite digital tools and I'm being featured! On February 15 check out the IDOE website to see my video on EdPuzzle Student Projects!

Digital Learning Month Videos

Minecraft for Education

Hey!

Have you heard of gamifying your classroom? It's the idea of transforming your classroom through gaming! Minecraft is a phenomenal tool to add to your classroom! I created a project that asked students to re-create an ancient city and add modern technology to it. Minecraft was the perfect tool for the jobs and my students fell in love with this project! It brought a whole new level of entertainment, engagement, and a deeper learning to my classroom! Check out my lesson plan and a student's Minecraft project below!

Minecraft Project Example

Minecraft Project Lesson Plan 

Engaging Note Taking

Want to step-up your presentations? Read this blog post to learn how to create engaging and interactive presentations; from video notes to Pear Deck to Slides Q & A and more!

Engaging Note Taking

Slides & Pear Deck

Hi Everyone!

This blog post focuses on using the Pear Deck Add-on for Google Slides; allowing you to create fun and engaging presentations that measures student learning in real time! My tutorial includes instructions on how to get Add-ons, how to create Pear Deck Slides, and how to present using Pear Deck. I've also included one of my own presentations that use the Pear Deck Add-on.

Enjoy!

Slides & Pear Deck Presentation