Level Up your lessons with Pear Deck

Have you ever wanted to ensure your students were paying attention?  Why not try Pear Deck?

Tutorial Video:  https://youtu.be/9PJgsa-fnmA

Pear Deck: Quick Start Guide

Signup for a training webinar: https://www.peardeck.com/learn-pear-deck

Lessons and Activities: https://www.peardeck.com/orchard/

20 ways to utilize Pear Deck  (DitchtheTextbook article)

Making Flashcards (Matt Miller tutorial)

Add closed Captioning: (video tutorial)


Grade 6-12 staff currently have access to Pear Deck.
Contact Shawn Mahoney for more information.

Level up your lessons with Pear Deck !

Video Tutorial - Best Sources for Images

Image Search Options

It can be a challenge to find images for student projects.  A Google image search has the Safe Search feature activated by default, an image search can sometimes show results not appropriate for school use.   It is also important to adhere to digital copyright protocol.  The following video demonstrates various ways students can find appropriate images.  The links below show resources for images and ways to edit or create your own.

 

Image Search Options:
Creative Commons:  https://ccsearch.creativecommons.org/

Kid Friendly Search Engine:  https://www.kiddle.co

Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/

Students can create their own artwork with: http://kleki.com/

Advanced artwork can be created with: https://pixlr.com/

Google Cast Your Chromebook

With Google Cast for Education, you can share your chromebook screen with your teacher station to show on the projector screen.  Watch this video to see the process:

Follow these steps to find out how:

Student Video Resources

The following sites offer free educational video content for students:

Crash Course YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/user/crashcourse

DiscoveryEd - http://www.discoveryeducation.com/students/

Khan Academy - https://www.khanacademy.org/

National Geographic for Kids - https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/videos/

NBC Learn - https://indiana.nbclearn.com/     

Next Vista -  http://www.nextvista.org/ - student created videos and contests

Watch Know Learn - http://www.watchknowlearn.org/

More Resources

Add questions to video with Edpuzzle:  https://edpuzzle.com/

New Google Earth adventures

Google Earth is now available to students with Chromebooks.  While the older version used to only be available as a downloaded program, the New Google Earth is accessible in Google Chrome.  Click here to view: https://www.google.com/earth/
Explore guided tours with the "Voyager" tool  (found on left side of screen)
Looking for ways to integrate Google Earth in your curriculum?  Be sure to check out Google Outreach:  https://www.google.com/earth/outreach/
How long has Google Earth been around? Take a look at this time lapse of 25 locations:  https://youtu.be/OgSSED7f1tM

More Info at Google Earth FAQ

A Clever Way To Login

Clever is a login service that is currently being set up for kindergarten and first grade.  The students have a QR Code badge with their google account information. The students show the badge to the chromebook camera for login.   The clever login service will be connected to many of the student services such as iReady, myOn, Lexia. Others will be added eventually. Clever should allow many online programs to utilize students Google account for login.  No data from previous years should be lost in the process. So far, Jackson, Brown, and Emerson schools have been using Clever for K-1 students. First grade staff have discovered it may seem best to keep the badges while kindergarten keep the badges in their headphone bags.  Teachers have access to print off their own badges.

More info on the process can be found here:  https://tinyurl.com/scscclever

Multi-layered Lesson for the Win

Bridget Longmeier has been using a variety of tools to create wonderful lessons.   While serving as an instructional coach, she has been recording best practices in the classroom.  She then creates a screencast with “screencastify” to point out specific scenes in the video. It is a great way to pause the video and add reflection.  Video link: https://goo.gl/vUatZx  A variety of tools can be used for recording the video like Wevideo.  Screencasts can be recorded with Screencastify or Loom. Be sure to check out her great work on her Blog:  http://brownliteracy.blogspot.com/   and Google site:  https://sites.google.com/scsc.k12.in.us/brownliteracy