Kahoot! Cool New Features: 1 New and 1 Sort of New

As we approach the tail end of the school year and exams are looming, many of you are beginning to think about reviews.   Kahoot! could lend itself as a nice resource.     I know many of you have already used it in your classroom and others of you have at least seen it and have shown interest in using it.   Over the years, Kahoot! has made a number of updates to their application...two of which are worth checking out:

• Ghost Mode (Semi-New Feature launched earlier this school year):  Allows students to play games multiple times against their first (or second, etc.) attempts.   Once a game of Kahoot! is finished you will now see a "PLAY AGAIN" button that contains a ghost icon.  Once you click this button, the same game is launched which now includes your live class as well their ghost from the previous session (the ghosts play alongside live players and the ghosts answers and answer times will be exactly the same as those the players entered in the previous game).   What a great way to reinforce learning through repetition. 
• Team Mode (New Feature just launched this month): Allows students to play a Kahoot! session as a team.  Students get into small groups and sign in with one device per team.  They create a team name and type in all the names of the players on the team.  Team mode differs from the Classic mode in that  it allows time for teams to discuss after the question and response options are displayed on the board before the answers get displayed on their device to answer.  This mode seems to provide a fun way to create reviews while also focusing on collaboration, teamwork, leadership skills, and good communication.  

Website:  https://getkahoot.com

5 Free Teacher Tools from the Library of Congress

I recently read a blog post about 5 free resources available from the Library of Congress and thought I'd share them:

1. Student Discovery Sets:  These are ebooks that bring together historical artifacts and one-of-a kind documents on wide range of topics, from history to science to literature.  Interactive tools let students zoom in, draw to highlight details, and conduct open-ended primary source analysis.  Each set has full teaching resources available 
2. Shadow Puppet EDU:  This is a free app that allows students to create video slideshows, adding their own narration and text.  The videos can be up to 30 min long and can include up to 100 images.  Shadow Puppet EDU has partnered with the Library of Congress to give students access to a collection of images.  
3. Aesop's Fables:  This is a free Android or iOS app that provides access to a collection of Aesop's Fables. 
4. Primary Source Sets:  The Library of Congress provides plenty of primary source resources (from topics like Baseball in America, Jamestown, Jim Crow Laws, etc.
5. Lesson Plans: The Library of Congress provides teacher created lesson plans using the Library of Congress primary sources.   Lesson plans range from elementary school to high school 

New Feature in Quizlet (quizlet.live)

For anyone not familiar with Quizlet, it is a free website providing learning tools for students, including flashcards, study and game modes.  It was created by a high school sophomore in 2005 and currently has over 40 million study sets.  If you haven't used Quizlet before, you may want to check it out.  Our Junior School teachers are using it extensively in their classrooms.   The purpose of this post however was not to introduce Quizlet, but more to introduce a new feature Quizlet recently launched that may get more of you trying this application...this new feature is Quizlet.live

This new "Live" feature allows you to gamify any Quizlet review study set.  Here is how it works: Students enter a game pin and their name on quizlet.live.  Once students have joined a game, they are randomly assigned to an animal-themed team of 3 or 4 students (teachers are able to reshuffle the teams if they'd like).  Once your students organize themselves around the room near their teammates (for easier communication), the game can begin. 

Teammates work together to match correct answers faster than the other teams. For each game, twelve possible answers are spread across each teammate’s screen. Everyone on the team gets the same question but only one student has the answer. And so, they need to communicate with each other to find the correct answers in the least amount of time.

WOW!! Sounds like a fun way to run a review in class and promote mastery learning.  Not only are students working together to learn the hard content, but they are also learning skills such as communication and collaboration!!  I would be intrigued to hear feedback from anyone who tries using Quizlet.live in their class.

Quizlet website: https://quizlet.com/latest

Learn more about Quizlet live: https://quizlet.com/features/live

To join a session visit: https://quizlet.live (students do not need to have an account to play)

3 Ways to Use Video in the Classroom

Using video in the classroom can be powerful and allow us to make meaningful learning experiences and connections.  I am sure at some point you have all used video in your classrooms.  Here are 3 ways you can incorporate video projects in your classroom that I gathered from an EdSurge Article:

1. Flip your classsroom:  Lessons are recorded ahead of time and students can watch lessons as many times as they need at at their own pace.  Create your own videos using Screencast-o-matic, QuickTime, SMART Recorder, etc. or supplement using existing content from Khan Academy, YouTube, PBS Learning Media etc.  Flipping your classroom will allow you to free up time for in class discussions, projects, etc. 
2. Jazz up student assessments:   Allow students to show mastery by having them record themselves showing their learning in unique ways (i.e.-have them record themselves reading passages, labs/science experiments, or responses to a topic/question).  In addition, use platforms like EdPuzzle which allows you embed quizzes directly into video clips.  Better yet, have students demonstrate mastery by creating their own assessments in videos.  
3. Bring video into student projects and storytelling:  Incorporate more storytelling into the projects you are currently using in class.  Present.me is a free online website that allows you to upload content (PDF, PowerPoint, etc.) to an online platform and record video of yourself presenting the information. Another good application is Videolicious.  This is a free user friendly tool for taking pictures to tell stories.  

BONUS:  Add excitement to a parent weekly newsletter or email by creating a video.  Using green screen apps like Touchcast or Do Ink will allow you to create amazing video projects.  

5 iPad Apps that help students learn how to read music

As I sat and read my boys' report cards this week, I noticed how many opportunities they are provided on a weekly basis to learn something I never did...music.  There schedules involve weekly courses in keyboarding, music, violin (for one of them).  I am extremely happy they are exposed to this at an early age.  I was never musically talented nor was I exposed to it early in my education.  I would say reading music is all Greek to me, but I am Greek so that wouldn't make sense ;-). However, I never learned to read music but wish I had.  This brings me to the main point of this blog post. Technology today can offer some great opportunities in music education.  I recently read about 5 iPad apps that help students learn to read music.    The apps provide exercises, challenging quizzes, tutorials and several other materials for music learners.

1. Name that note: This is a note spelling quiz to help learn note names on a staff (there are 3 different levels)
2. ClefTutor Free:  Includes a number of helpful tutorials teaching music fundamentals from musical alphabet to the staff and more.  It also features challenging quizzes.  
3. Music Note Sight Reading Trainer: This app is designed to mimic the look and style of real sheet music.  An important feature of this app is to read from left to right while having multiple notes on the staff at the same time as it would be with real music.
4. Tenuto: A collection of 15 customizable exercises designed to enhance musicality (from recognizing chords on a keyboard to indentifying intervals by ear.  It also includes five musical calculators for accidentals, intervals, chords, analysis symbols, and twelve-tone matrices
5. Music Tutor Free: Improves sight-reading skills by practicing between treble clef, bass cleff or both for a duration of 1, 5, or 10 min. 

Theses apps can be put on our iPad carts to be used in whole class settings, load it on your teacher iPad for station work, or pass them along to parents of your students for additional practice at home.

Pindex-"Pinterest for Education"

Pindex is a pinboard (similar to Pinterest) for education.  It allows students and teachers to create and curate educational videos and infographics.   Pindex has a feature where you can award digital badges for watching videos and completing short quizzes on a particular board.  Badges are awarded to viewers after they check off each post on the board.  If you post a quiz to a board, viewers must score 100% to progress and earn the award (the quiz can be taken as many times as they like).  What a great way to create and share playlists of educational videos.  In addition,  earning digital badges provides a great way to monitor student progress. 

This application is currently in beta and is only available through an invitation. You can request an invitation through their site and should receive confirmation within a few hours.    Learn more about Pindex by clicking here

2 Google Docs updates released last week that might be useful for your classroom

Google is constantly updating browsers, apps, etc and the updates are instantaneous (no need to manually force the update).  Without knowing the updates are coming, the new features can often times go unnoticed.  However, these updates could have potential benefits for you or your students. Here are 2 recent updates that might be useful in your classroom:

• Document Outlining Tool:  If you are working in a Google Doc, your browser now has a document outlining tool.  The outline tool will recognize headers within your document and automatically create a table of contents for easy navigation within longer Google Docs.  To access the outline tool, select "Document outline" from the "Tools" drop-down menu within your doc.  NOTE:  The heading is not recognized by the tool if there isn't anything written underneath the heading.  See video cast below for how this works

• EPUB Publication:  Creating an EPUB file allows you to create ebooks which could be shared to eReaders (iPads, Kindles, etc).  If you or your students are looking to create ebooks, using the EPUB feature in Google Docs could be a good option.  To create an EPUB file, select "download as" from the "File" drop down menu in your Google Document then choose "EPUB".  Once you have the file in EPUB format, the challenge is getting it to your eReader.  To learn how to do this select the following links (they are links to google searches):

• How to add EPUBS on your Kindle
• How to add EPUBS on your iPad