Active Learning Video
Active Learning · Requires all students to participate · Often requires students to participate in a discussion process · Can naturally move into a cooperative or collaborative learning project Directions: • Work with your content team • Choose one website to explore from your content and one to explore from either Discussion Resources or Alternative Learning Tools • Post your findings on the Wallwisher wall
HMS Wallwisher
GMS Wallwisher
Discussion Resources: -
Socrative: Smart Response system that can use any device to engage students with educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops, iPads, etc (show video) FREE APP- watch the video on how it works.
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Scribblar: Real-time multi-user whiteboard, allows teachers and students to collaborate online in a private room
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Collaborize Classroom: Fosters engaged participation from all students in a private onlinediscussion forum, provides structure and variety to discussion. Embed multi-media, pictures, pdfs to discussions in the safe space of the Collaborize Classroom, which is open 24/7/365. Results can be published on the Collaborize page with graphics. To see how this works from a student view, click here and ask to join this class. Let Beth know and she will approve you and you can experiment. You can also create your own site and experiment with that.
Alternative Learning Tools: -
Pixton: Comic Creator, ‘The World’s Best Way to Make Comics’. Kickstart your creativity with presets, templates and characters. Collaborate with others- create with friends, even at the same time, with Team Comics. Login for demonstration: Screen Name: CMS_Cougar Password: cougar
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Wallwisher: Wallwisher is an online notice board, ideal for making announcements, keeping notes and things you can do with Post-its and more. No user registration is needed- making it great to use with students! Some ideas: collecting ideas for exploration, online discussions, examples, posting projects, evaluating a theme / topic- check out all of the ideas in: 32 Interesting Ways to Use WallWisher in the Classroom
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Blogging: You can always blog with the NNPS Community pages. However, if you want a more user-friendly blogging experience, you can try a tool like KidBlog.orgdesigned for teachers who want to provide each student with an individual blog, safe and simple, that allow students to publish posts and participate in discussions within a secure classroom community. Teachers maintain complete control over student blogs.
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HeadMagnet: Head Magnet is a webtool that aims to allow students to easily create study lists, rapidly memorize new material and automatically track what they have learned. Lists can be shared, saved and edited by others. This is a very cool way to use digital flashcards.
PE/ RA: -
Curriculum Bits: Free Interactive Teaching Resources. Correct technique is demonstrated, students can work with each other to see if they are using correct technique (this is for PE, for Art there is Making a Sprig Mould, Making a Clay Coil Pot or Copying a Picture, for Voyager there is Learning Vocabulary Techniques
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Cacoo: Create diagrams online, real time collaboration! Cacoo is a user friendly online drawing tool that allows you to create a variety of diagrams such as site maps, wire frames and network charts. Cacoo can be used free of charge. Multiple users can share and edit one diagram simultaneously. Changes are shown on the sharers screen in real time.
English: -
StoryBird: Collaborative writing site, allows students to select artwork, create story, work collaboratively with other students on writing then publish story online. Example story: A Ticked Off Tink. Videos guide teachers through the process
- Google Lit Trips: Takes Google Earth and what the students are reading and connects them in ways that were formerly not possible. For example, in ‘The Watsons Go to Birmingham’, students can actually travel from Flint, Michigan on the journey with the Watsons to Birmingham, Alabama and see the locations that were so important in the story. Download the .kmz file and it will open in Google Earth. Includes ‘Question Stops’ that provide discussion points for the story (can move back and forth between street view and sky view) - Folding Story: Write. Fold. Pass. FoldingStory is a group storytelling game. When you sign up you enter the fold. You can check out suggestions, join an open story or read finished stories. Add a line, fold and pass it on. Check out the finished stories.
Social Studies -
WeDebateIt: Create an online debate for students- interactive, students don’t have to sign in. Great visual to show students who are pro and who are against once the topic is posted. Students can post topics for debate, then respond with comments as pro or against.
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Flocabulary- The Week in Rap: Summarizes important current events in the format of a rap song (30-day free trial). Each Friday ‘The Week in Rap’ brings you: a current events music video, news summaries, links to full news stories, activities and quizzes to test comprehension.
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Historical Tweets: What would history’s major events look like if they had been tweeted? Chose the category on the right (including the time period)- have students create their OWN version of the ‘tweet of history’- 140 characters or less per line!
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TwHistory: TwHistory is about helping students experience a slice of time through the eyes of another person. The aggregate of these personal experiences can then give a unique perspective of an event in history. It’s dull to memorize the events of the 13 days of the Cuban Missile Crisis for a pop quiz, but it gets your attention when McNamara drops the F-bomb on Twitter because the world is about to end in a big nuclear fireball. The process for students to live history: Pick an event. Pick a person. Do the research and prepare the Tweets. Then watch history unfold via Twitter.
Science: -
Shout: Shout invites educators and students to take an active role in global environmental issues. Connect online to interact with experts in the field, share ideas and collaborate with people around the world who, like you, are committed to solving environmental challenges. Shout gives participants a framework for success with resources and tools for exercising social responsibility while building the 21st century skills of collaboration, innovation and critical thinking. When students are connected through technology and empowered to build activities in their own way the learning experience extends far beyond the four walls of the classroom. Check out the list of archived and upcoming activities.
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Material Worlds Simulations: Play and experiment with the growing collection of material worlds simulations and get a feel for the forces at the heart of the physical world. Materialworlds creates real-time live simulation activities like bridges, laws of motion, crash, kinetic gas theory and more.
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Building Big Lab: Virtual simulation labs from the ‘Building Big’ TV show, gives students the change to experience virtually the forces, loads, materials and shapes while building bridges, domes, skyscrapers dams and tunnels.
Math: -
Visual.ly: The world’s largest community for sharing infographics and visualizations. ExploreSee the best infographics on the web all in one place. Share- submit your designs to get exposure and feedback. Create- we’re building the tools of the future (view the labs)
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Slader: Slader is a social community built around sharing answers and explanations of Math textbook questions. With a uniquely social quality to the site, users are asked to submit answers to their homework textbook questions and explanations to them through the engine on the site, or even as a picture of the homework notebook or textbook. Payment is even offered for students who share explanations and answers. There is even a social community aspect complete with profiles that let students connect on the site.
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SumDog: SumDog is a great site with math Games that are free to play, either at home or at school. With over 100 numeracy topics, split into 10 levels, most of the games are multi-player, allowing students to play against thousands of peers worldwide. The games are designed to be engaging and fun, helping students enjoy developing their numeracy skills. Special contests for Virginia- win prizes and compete against other students.
- Planning for Plagiarism-Proof Assignments Tip Sheet for Teachers The following is adapted, with permissions from the author, Doug Johnson, from the article “PlagiarismProofing Assignments” published in Phi Delta Kappan, March 2004
Much effort is expended in education trying to “catch” plagiarism in student work. Teachers and library media specialists are using various Web services and techniques using search engines to determine if or how much of student writing is lifted from online sources. Our time as educators is perhaps better spent creating research assignments that minimize the likelihood of plagiarism in the first place. Rather than making assignments that can be easily plagiarized and then contriving methods for detecting or reducing copying, why not do a little work upfront to design projects that require original, thoughtful research? Qualities of LPP (Low Probability of Plagiarism) projects: 1.
LPP projects have clarity of purpose and expectations. This information is clearly communicated to students and available to parents.
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LPP research projects give students choices. Dig down and look at the core concepts your research assignments are trying to teach, and let the students pick a specific subject that interests them.
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LPP projects are relevant to the student’s life. So many times we ask our students to research important topics – environmental issues, historical issues, health issues – but fail to help them make the vital connection of why the findings are important to themselves or the people in town in which they live. The I-Search approach suggests that “the topic should choose you.” See http://www.literacymatters.org/content/isearch/intro.htm
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LPP projects ask students to write in a narrative rather than an expository style. The ISearch techniques also suggest that students write about not just what they discovered, but the story of how they went about gathering their findings.
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LPP projects stress higher level thinking skills and creativity. Think how different the results of a science project are than a paper that simply asks an “about” question. “Write a research paper about ice.” Boring! Instead brainstorm an original theory, design a means of testing it, and find ways to effectively communicate your findings. Suddenly we’ve moved up on Bloom’s taxonomy from the knowledge and inference levels right to application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. More fun and impossible to copy.
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LPP projects answer real questions. Unfortunately, teachers rarely ask questions to which they do not believe they know the answer. Diminishing to the student; boring for the teacher.
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LPP projects involve a variety of information finding activities. As library media specialists, teachers and parents, we are comfortable with our familiar primary sources of reference books, magazine indexes and trade books. Yet the answers to many personal, local and timely questions cannot be found in them. They can provide excellent background information, but often we need to talk to experts, conduct surveys, design experiments or look at other kinds of primary sources to get precise information that is meaningful to individuals. LPP projects tend to be hands-on, allowing students to learn by doing, not just listening. Corollary skills are also practiced in this type of “research” project: writing skills, interviewing skills, photography skills, layout/design skills and speaking skills.
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LPP projects use technology to spur creativity. Whether for planning, for research or for communication, many students find the use of technology motivating.
9. LPP projects use formats that use multiple senses. Our ability to digitize and present information is no longer restricted to the written word but now can include drawings, photos, sounds, music, animations and movies. All are formats that carry important and often unique information. 10. LPP projects can be complex, but are broken into manageable steps. This helps students to master corollary planning and time management skills in the process. Large projects can be overwhelming even for adults, but planning smaller steps, building timelines, creating frequent deadlines and scheduling multiple conferences turn complexity into manageability. 11. LPP projects are often collaborative and produce results that are better than individual work. Joint problem solving, assigning and accepting responsibility and discovering and honoring individual talents help create a synergy that can result in better, more satisfying results than students working alone might produce. Not every project needs to be a joint effort, however real-world work environments increasingly stress teamwork. 12. LPP projects have results that are shared with people who care and respond. Kids get hooked because adults take the time to really look at the work they have done and comment on it. Assessments and reviews by peers, experts and neighbors (any audience beyond the teacher) are common in scouting, athletics, dramatics, 4-H and music organizations. Knowing others will be looking and may detect plagiarism helps reduce its likelihood. 13. LPP projects are authentically assessed. Quality indicators like rubrics and checklists that are given to students when an assignment is made can help guide learning and keep guesswork to a minimum. As students become more sophisticated in the research process, they can choose or design their own “rules of quality,” one of the indicators of a genuinely intrinsically motivated person. 14. LPP projects allow the learner to reflect, revisit, revise and improve their final projects. Good projects, like gardens, musical repertoires and relationships, are probably always works in progress. If students misuse information gathered from another source, they
should be given the chance to correct the mistake. 15. LPP projects are encouraged by adults who believe that given enough time, resources and motivation, all students are capable of original work. It’s not just the talented and gifted student who can make choices, solve problems creatively, and complete complex tasks. These parents, teachers and library media specialists know that most students rise to the level of performance expected of them, and that great ideas can come from anyone in the class.
For more information about Doug Johnson’s work, go to: http://www.doug-johnson.com/welcome/
Active Learning Strategies Let’s Cheat
Take a Guess
Tie a Yellow Ribbon
Gallery Walk Student Summary Mini-Boards
Games
Quiz/Test Questions
Three/Four Columns
Note-taking
Doodle It! Interactive T/F Quiz
Choral Reading
Pass It
Pass the Paper
Finger Signals Index Cards
Go Fish!
Graphic Organizers
Four Corners
Visual Lists
Pass the Quarter Note Comparison/ Sharing
Ticket Out
Quick Write
Similes, Analogies
Graffiti Wall
and Metaphors Think/Pair/Share
Question Bee
Note: Most of these links go to the same site. On the site, scroll down the list to find the strategy you are interested in .