Vote for your favorite Doodle for Google

Young artists coast to coast doodled their inventions to make the world a better place. Doodle 4 Google guest judges have chosen the 50 state winners. Now it's your turn to vote!

The winner's doodle will appear on the Google.com homepage and he or she will receive a $30,000 scholarship and a $50,000 Google for Education technology grant for his or her school. Help us choose the winner - cast your votes for each grade group now.

You have until May 9th to cast your vote.   Click here to be taken to the voting page.  Even though none of our submissions were chosen, they still illustrate some beautiful ideas.   Check it out!

Great quote!

Today I had the opportunity to see Jim Knight present on High Impact Instruction.   Of course, I have some ideas that I'd like to try out- as well as books I want to read.  Here is a great quote he shared.   I promise to share more ideas in the upcoming weeks with you!  

Blendspace

Last week, Renee showed me a cool new resource that could be helpful for teachers wanting to try flipping their classrooms.  

Blendspace allows teachers to blend your classroom with digital content.   Check out the short tutorial below. 

Blendspace can help teachers do the following:

• Organize - collect web resources in one place and share with just one link
• Assess - measure student understanding with build-in quizzes
• Track - monitor student progress and adapt to student needs in real time

A great resource for...

• Flipping their Classroom
• Project Based Learning
• Differentiated Instruction

Does this sound intriguing to you?  Do you want to try it out?  Let me know and I'd be happy to help you figure it out!   Let me know!

Take Your Classroom to Work Day

As you may have noticed, today was Take Your Child to Work Day.  I recall going to one of the very first "Take Your Daughter to Work Days" when I was in school - and enjoyed spending the day seeing what my dad did.   Times have changed a bit - and with that, Google hosted a Take Your Classroom to Work Day today where they hosted a variety of virtual field trips to various fun and inspiring workplaces.  Check out some of the field trips below and see the recordings of the experiences.  

If you’re a student, parent or teacher, we encourage you to tune in to the topics that interest you. Most field trips are appropriate for all-ages, while a handful may be more interesting for high school students.

Take Your Classroom to Work:

• with a U.S. Senator
• at NASDAQ
• with the Ramen Burger entrepreneur
• at Forbes
• with a filmmaker
• with sports marketers
• with a YouTube celebrity chef
• at The Met
• in the world of fashion
• at the Huffington Post
• with the Chicago Bulls
• with a TV news anchor
• in Hollywood’s special effects
• at the Georgia Aquarium
• with nurses
• at Second City
• with a scientific investigator
• with one of our country’s heroes

English is Crazy!

I saw this video on another coaches blog - an it was too interesting not to share.... Enjoy!

Thanks, Mike Johnson, for sharing with me!

Happy Earth Day!

Today is Earth Day!   I hope that you can find some way to celebrate with your students.   It was always one of my favorite "holidays" as a classroom teacher as we discussed different ways we could help save the Earth.  Just in case you need some resources to help you celebrate with your students, check out the links below.

• Digital Storybook: The Jalapeño Seed
• Click on the link above to read the story with your students about Farmer Paco's adventures and the ensuing festivities at his community garden.  Use the story to inspire students to plan and plot their own community gardens.
• After reading the story, your students can plan their own community garden by using this worksheet (.pdf) or make a plan on how to make their community looking beautiful by using this worksheet (.pdf).
• Check out www.earthday.org's Earth Day Video Below

• Check out BrainPop's various Earth themed videos by clicking here.
• Click here to read this article about how Earth Day started. 
• Click here to check out some other fun Earth Day resources.

I hope you find these helpful, and have a wonderful Earth Day!

A very interesting science lesson...

Here's great Ted-Ed video on why ketchup is so hard to pour...   Who knew there was so much Science involved.  Enjoy!

Techy Terms Tuesday - Sixth Edition

Welcome to the sixth edition of Techy Terms Tuesday!

Do you remember in the fall, taking the Level of Teaching Innovation (LoTi)?  I know it was the week of conferences, and we had some log in issues, however, the LoTi is meant to help give you some areas to improve on in your teaching.  One of the biggest complaints I received about the LoTi was the complex "techy" vocabulary used in the survey.   Since we will be taking the survey again soon, I thought it might be a great idea to transform some of the complex language into teacher friendly terms - as I think we are all super innovative educators - and I know that will be reflected in the upcoming survey!  

This weeks question I'm picking apart: I employ learner-centered strategies to address the diverse needs of all students using developmentally appropriate digital tools or enriched resources.

Simply put:

This is a question about using digital tools for differentiation. When your students are using digital tools, do they all do the exact same work, or does it fit their learning needs?

Many digital tools are specifically built to differentiate such as RAZ Kids, Study Island, and Agnitus. Other digital tools lends themselves well to differentiation, such as Google Drawing, Presentation, Animoto, Glogster, and many, many others.

Happy National Library Week!

Did you know that it's National Library Week?    Ms. D & Ms. Sara in the LRC were busy making the awesome "Our Library Makes Us Happy" video in honor of the week!   Check it out below.



Did you also know that Ms. D has an amazing website filled with great resources for students and teachers?   Check it out by clicking here.

Thanks to Ms. D & Ms. Sara for making the Roosevelt LRC nothing short of amazing & Happy National Library Week!

Do you enjoy shortcuts?

Did you know that when you are looking at your Google Calendar either for your classroom, checking out a computer cart, your personal calendar, etc. you can use some Google Calendar shortcuts to navigate around?   This was a new quick tip I learned today!

Check out the shortcuts below and try them the next time you are in your Google Calendar!

If these don't work for some reason, check your Google Calendar Settings to make sure you have the keyboard shortcuts enabled.   Mine were without a problem, but just in case, here's what you're looking for.

I'm always happy to help!  I hope you enjoyed this quick tip!

Techy Terms Tuesday #5

Welcome to the fifth edition of Techy Terms Tuesday!

Do you remember in the fall, taking the Level of Teaching Innovation (LoTi)?  I know it was the week of conferences, and we had some log in issues, however, the LoTi is meant to help give you some areas to improve on in your teaching.  One of the biggest complaints I received about the LoTi was the complex "techy" vocabulary used in the survey.   Since we will be taking the survey again in April, I thought it might be a great idea to transform some of the complex language into teacher friendly terms - as I think we are all super innovative educators - and I know that will be reflected in the upcoming survey!  

This weeks term:  innovative thinking

My students engage in standards-based instructional units and related learning experiences that emphasize innovative thinking student use of digital tools, and applied learning to the real world.

Innovative Thinking

Innovative thinking represents the cognitive processes that enable students to look at problems or situations from a fresh perspective that suggests unorthodox or creative solutions.

Simply put, innovative thinking is thinking outside the box or exploring multiple solutions.

How do you use innovative thinking in your instruction?

Happy Math Awareness Month

Did you know that April is Math Awareness Month?   Math was my least favorite subject to learn in school, but as classroom teacher I loved to teach math.   I didn't realize that Math had it's own month, but April is it!

Check out this fun video for Math Awareness Month!

You can check out more about Math, Magic, & Mystery and Math Awareness Month on the Mathmatical Association of America's Google + Page. 

Look How Far We've Come...

Look at how technology has evolved through the ages... 

Look at some of the cool stuff happening in technology now...

Let's do this!

Infographics from WebWiseTutors