Timers are powerful. Whether you use them to let students know how much more time before you are going to pick up a warm-up/bell ringer, to indicate station or lab rotations, or just to overall facilitate transitions---timers help keep everything moving along. They can also be motivating for students to stay on track.
Did you know there is a quick and easy way to pull up a timer whenever you want? 1. In Google Chrome, in the omnibox (that's the bar where you also type in web addresses), just type "Timer 2 Minutes" and it will immediately pull up a timer that starts counting down right away! 2. Several timer Chrome extensions that you can get by just clicking "Apps" in Chrome and then visiting the "Web Store" (see screenshot below). Then they will just be added to your Chrome browser! Here are a few great ones (make sure you are checking under extensions): -"Timer" by Kuba - Really quick and simple interface. - "1 Click Timer" - This one plays nice music when time runs up that you can customize. Virtual discussion boards can be powerful tools for collaboration! However, it can be challenging to set them up if they also require students to have accounts.
TodaysMeet makes it so easy to create a discussion board---you don't need an account to make one. You can also give it a unique name and set up when you want it to expire. Then just give your students the URL. It will prompt students to provide a "nickname" and voila! Consider asking thought provoking question prompts or asking students to share ideas or questions on a topic. This is especially useful during a time that students may be watching a short video in class, as students can contribute thoughts, ideas, or questions they may have while the video is playing! Oh---and if you do want extra features such as access control? Make a free teacher account on the website. Have you used iTunes U before? It's likely you have heard of iTunes, but maybe not iTunes U, which is a part of the iTunes store. What we love about iTunes U is that: (1) it's free, (2) you don't have to have an iTunes account to download things, and (3) it's constantly growing. You can also use it on a variety of non-apple devices---just download iTunes (free) on your device.
Here is a great video showing a little bit about what iTunes U can offer. This video is older though, so realize there has been so much growth since then. Downloading content from iTunes means not having to stream it from the internet. It's permanently on your device! iTunes U contains content from universities, schools, independent consultants, etc. TEA has their own page on iTunes U where they provide excellent content available for download. Here is some information about Texas Education on iTunes U. We are also hosted on TEA's iTunes U page. You can find us by searching "Amoeba Sisters" in the iTunes store search bar. Pinterest is one of those websites where hours can go by without you noticing. We all know why. It has some great ideas---for tons of topics---and education is no exception! We have a Pinterest page ourselves.
So what kind of things might you look up on Pinterest in education? Try searching for these below topics in Pinterest to start finding some awesome ideas: -"Science comics" (or your subject area) -"Classroom displays" (for classroom ideas!) -"Anchor charts" -"Science resources" (or your subject area) -"Educational technology" We are really getting into GIFs. You can read more about why on our GIF page.
After you check that out, we mentioned on that page that there are lots of places to host GIFs. Here is our Padlet example. A teacher can create a Padlet page and then only needs to provide students with the link. Students don't need an actual account. By just double clicking, they can make a post and comment on a GIF. They can also post their own. Padlet also allows you to turn on "approval only" so that posts only show if you approve them. We have our Padlet commenting turned off right now. Here is our Linoit example. The navigation menu is in the bottom right. If you drag that white rectangle around, you can see where we have posted some of our GIFs with questions. We have commenting turned off, but if turned on in the settings, it allows students to answer questions about GIFs on different colored sticky notes. Students don't need an actual Linoit account---they just need the link provided by their teacher! |
About This PageThis page features some of Pinky's favorite instructional technology websites, apps, online resources, response systems, and other tools. Please always read the terms and privacy policy of any technology tool that you plan to use in the classroom.
Disclosure? If we share a tool or website on this page, it's because we like it and find it useful. We don't have affiliate links on this blog. If we use affiliate links at any point on this blog, we will announce on the individual post. Topics
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