Tech Tips of the Week
April 4-8, 2016 #proudtobeajet #mcslearn
HOTTEST New Thing JCHS Students Are EXCITED About: ESCAPE ROOMS!
Breakout EDU is a kit that can transform any room in your school into an Escape Room experience creating ultra-engaging learning games for people of all ages. Games (Breakouts) teach teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, and troubleshooting by presenting participants with challenges that ignite their natural drive to problem-solve.
Breakouts are perfect for classrooms, staff trainings, dinner parties, and at home with the family! At the end of a Breakout, your players will be eager for the next! Speciality K-12 Breakouts can be used to teach core academic subjects including math, science, history, language arts and have embedded standards that apply problem solving strategies within a real world OR collaborative context.
Not sure what an ESCAPE ROOM is or how it works? Huntsville now has an Escape Room experience you can try before trying it with your students using the Breakout EDU Kit available in the JCHS Library.
Browse the subject area games available in Breakout EDU and let the JCHS Library help you set up an Escape Room for your subject area!
"Breakout Edu: Escape From The Traditional Classroom". Education Week - Teaching Toward Tomorrow. N.p., 2016. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.
"Games". Breakout EDU. N.p., 2016. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.
"Home". Huntsville Escape Rooms. N.p., 2016. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.
Teachers Can Now Create Polls In Google Classroom
Google Classroom has recently introduced a new polling feature which enables teachers to create polls for a wide variety of educational purposes including comprehension check in class and feedback gathering. You can easily create single or multiple-choice question polls right in your class stream and see who have and haven’t answered your polls.
Here are four creative ways teachers are using polling in their classrooms.
1. Post exit tickets
Cindy Nordstrom, a teacher at Oak Ridge Elementary School in Minnesota, uses polling to make sure students understand the main points of a lesson. She explains, “We were studying poetry and talking about novels in verse. Since this was the first time that most students had encountered the format, I wanted to see if they knew what novels in verse were. I created this poll as an exit slip for the class. I could click on students’ answers and see their names associated with their response. This helped me get an at-a-glance view of who understood the concept and who didn't.”
2. Help students self-monitor
Mike Fricano, a high school teacher at the Iolani School in Hawaii, teaches a makerspace course called Make It 101. He polled his class to see if his students were on track for meeting a project deadline. Fricano says, “When I sent out this poll, I could see who was on schedule and who was at risk of missing their deadline. For those who reported being "way off track,"I met with them to help them get back on schedule. I will continue to use multiple choice polls like this to check in on deadlines and gauge interest in future projects.”
3. Guide student discussions
Heidi Bernasconi, a teacher at Clarkstown North High School in New York, used polling to help guide a career discussion with her students. “I wanted to discuss skills and qualities employers are looking for from graduates,” Bernasconi says. “I kicked off the discussion with a poll, which led us to review a Forbes article. I allowed students to see each others’ posts so they could get a feel for what others felt was important. ”
4. Get feedback on your lesson from students
Allyson Greene of Barrett Elementary School in Virginia uses polls to understand what her students liked best about a lesson. She says, “We were doing a unit on electricity and forces and I wanted to see which part of the unit was the most fun for them. Setting up a poll was very easy.”
You can also embed PollEverywhere polls directlyinto your Google Slides using the new Polling in Google Slides Chrome extension:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/polling-in-google-slides/jeehnidbmlhpkncbplipfalpjkhlokaa
"4 Ways To Use Polling In Google Classroom". Official Google for Work Blog. N.p., 2016. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.
"New- Teachers Can Now Create Polls In Google Classroom ~ Educational Technology And Mobile Learning". Educatorstechnology.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.
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