LC21
Supporting 21st Century Classrooms in La Canada
Let's Get Inspired!
If you've been on the lookout for lesson inspiration lately, you may have noticed some cool ideas that you've been able to adapt for your classroom. Beyond Teachers Pay Teachers, many of our fellow educators are sharing their best ideas freely, as we grow our PLNs (Personal Learning Networks) on social media or teacher forums. I highly recommend checking out the Google+ page for educators here, and filtering by grade span or curriculum in the bottom left. Some great stuff here!
This issue will focus on a lot of the great work happening in classrooms around the district, some tech tools that I've been trying out, and a few lesson ideas by some great teachers to get us all excited as we move into the long winter months. Take a look, below. If you'd like to try some of these lessons or tools, please contact David and we'll take the plunge together!
Teachers around the district are focused on providing excellent instruction for our students, and it's exciting to see some of the ways our colleagues have been innovating their classrooms. Second grade students in Karen Gilmour's class recently created striking chalk drawings of foxes in Robin Torres's art class. Karen used that project as a springboard for a research and writing project that the students created using their classroom Chromebook stations. See the pictures below. And over at PCY, 6th graders are working on a "Classroom Karaoke" video production project with executive producer/computer lab specialist Kristine Babish. Students take on the roles of director, cinematographers, writers, editors, set designers, and are working under a deadline to get these holiday-themed videos out in time!
Digital Citizenship lessons are taking off around the district, and take different forms throughout the grade levels. Check out some of the students' work in this issue.
Also, keep scrolling down to find an application to get a FREE voucher to take the Google Level 1 or 2 (or trainer!) exam. Also, see below to learn about a workaround to a big and frustrating change in Google Slides.
And to get us thinking, I read an article by Alice Keeler where she challenges the idea of replacing worksheets with Google Docs. Of course, there's always a place for recording facts and filling-in-the-blanks, and paper often works just fine: it's not worth it to re-invent the wheel just to add some tech. For the basic tasks, she encourages us to skip Docs in favor of Google Forms for their many advantages (like auto grading!), but she also give some tips on how to add deeper critical thinking opportunities in our assignments. A short read, and worth checking out!
Mrs Gilmour's Class: Mixing Student Art, Research, Writing, and Tech!
PCY Computer Lab: Classroom Karaoke Video Production Project
Lesson Inspiration, Tips and Tools
Checkmark: Grade Writing Faster!!!
Screencast Ideas for Teachers and Students
Pre-made Google Slides Templates
Lesson Inspiration: Backing Up Ideas
Lesson Inspiration: Context Clues and Central Themes
Super Quiz
SpeakIt
SMMRY: Summarize articles or documents quickly.
Auto Highlight
Edit MS Office Files in Drive
DocuTube
Classroom Split
Big Change to Google Slides
Digital Citizenship
Plagiarism and Fair Use
Super Digital Citizens
Upcoming Professional Growth Opportunities
FREE Google Certification Exam!
If you'd like to tackle the Google Level 1 or 2 certification exam on your own, please click the link here to get a free voucher code. Your Tech Department will provide you with a lot of resources for you to study, and we're always available for questions!
Greatest Hits from Past LC21 Newsletters
Use Sheets to Create Individual Rubrics for Students
Some of our English and History teachers at 7/8 have used a tool called Goobric, and some have tried out OrangeSlice. Both have their benefits, but aren't very user-friendly.
Here's a new tool developed by Alice Keeler that might just be the one that will catch on here in LCUSD. Check it out on the link below, and contact David if you'd like to try it out in class. If these tools save you precious time while still giving your students quality assessment, then any app you use can be valuable.