EdPuzzle

 

     I am constantly looking for interactive ways to teach during online school. One of the most helpful tools I have found is EdPuzzle. One of the largest struggles we face during online education is ensuring that the students are paying attention. I like to use EdPuzzle as a way to do so. In EdPuzzle, you can upload YouTube videos, and add quiz questions at desired durations. You can add multiple questions throughout the film and if the students cannot answer, they can rewatch the clips before answering. This helps with providing the students a resource for when they get distracted. I personally enjoy this feature because it allows you to test the viewers knowledge and make sure they are paying attention. Ed Puzzle is free, and it allows you to upload to google classroom, Moodle, schoology and many more! Teachers can share their Ed Puzzles as a link to both their students and other teachers as a resource. The quest style is also unlimited! You can make them fill in the blank, short answer or multiple choice! You can also link the quizzes to your grade book. This is a great tool for an asynchronous assignment online, or an activity in person! It provides the main points to the students while quizzing their education 

https://edpuzzle.com/

Newsela

 

Newsela is a website meant for the classroom. It provides news articles to students on topics that they care about it. This can include current events on sports, social issues, politics, etc. They also span across subject areas like social studies, health and science. This works to engage students with different interests. Newsela works to increase literacy and literacy is important to all content areas. However, as a future English teacher, it is especially important to me. I would personally use the resources on this site to do an article of the week. This would help students build literacy, background knowledge, and vocabulary. It also keeps them up to date with current events and world problems which I think is incredibly important. Lastly, I would utilize the annotation tool to encourage active reading. I would then be able to assess the kids with the assessment data for teachers on the site. 

Overall, this site is aligned with common core standards like the one requiring non-fiction reading. It also provides comprehension questions for the students that are common core aligned. It's great for differentiation because kids can read articles at the reading level suitable for them and this helps them improve their literacy. This is definitely a tool I would utilize in my own classroom!

Research Done Right!

  

   

With all of the research assignments that get assigned to students throughout grade school, Google is their number one go to search engine for all things research related. Google provides the entire world with millions of links to click on to read information that may not always be accurate. As educators, we do not want our students to rely on websites that teach them false information, nor do we want our students to believe everything they read on the internet even though it may look professionally written. While developing one of my lesson plans I came across a website called Science Journal for Kids and Tees. It is a website that provides articles written by actual researchers, about science topics for students in grade school. I personally found this to be a great tool! Students get assigned so many research projects especially in science where they need to search the web for information on their own time in order to develop a mini presentation such as a poster board or short essay. This website provides students with articles that are peer reviewed and even videos. The website is kid friendly and easy to navigate!

Here is the link for the website: https://sciencejournalforkids.org/?_sf_s=space