Oakland Schools Digital Learning
Newsletter - September 2022
In this issue you will find
- Resources for Constitution Day
- Spotify Music Playlists that are designed for classroom use
- Back to School (D)Ice Breakers and Debriefing Templates
- Space resources from NASA for grades K-8
- A link to a site where students enter a number and get weird and interesting facts about the number
- Links to three interactive Periodic Tables
- A Brain Break coloring book of famous works of art
- Resources for Lego and Scratch to use in your Makerspace
- Video showing how to use shortcuts to better organize your Google Drive
- Information about new Google Classroom features for schools/districts that have purchased Google Workspace for Education Plus
- Information about the new Apple Education Community
- Information about the new Class Homepage in Microsoft Teams
- Online lessons from the Michigan Learning Channel
- Information about Discovery Streaming supports for all learners
- An opportunity for 4th - 5th grade students to enter a county wide art contest
- A FREE, professional learning series on EduProtocols
Please reach out if you have questions about any of the information in this newsletter.
~Laura and Vinos
Constitution Day
Constitution Day Resources from the Library of Congress
To help you plan for your "Constitution Day" lessons, the Library of Congress has compiled a variety of materials from across its collections. In the collection you will find an ebook, lesson plans, link to primary source resources, Constitution stories to use with younger students and more.
Constitution Day Resources from iCivics
Elementary Resources:
- Play the "Do I have a Right" game to have students run a constitutional law firm and learn about the rights they are provided through the constitution.
- Challenge students to balance the three parts of our government and learn about the three branches by playing "Branches of Power."
Secondary Resources:
- This interactive Constitution Day lesson plan provides a step-by-step teacher's guide and ready-to-use student documents that will engage your students and give them a quick snapshot of the Constitution, the powers of the three branches, and the concepts of checks and balances.
Teaching the Constitution from PBS Learning Media
PBS Learning Media offers a Teaching the Constitution collection that includes resources that support teaching the fundamentals of the U.S. Constitution. You will find many resources in this collection including videos, documents and interactive lessons such as The Constitution at Work which calls for students to analyze documents from various points in American history.
Digital Resources
Music Playlists for Your Classroom
Christine Morgan has shared several student-friendly, CLEAN (lyrics and messages) Spotify playlists you can use in your classroom. Topics include Morning Playlist, #Throwback Thursday, Disney Classroom, Piano Pop Playlist, 90s Classroom, and Spooky Vibes. Note: You will need to create a free Spotify account to use the playlists.
(D)ice Breakers and Dice Debrief Templants
Help your students make connections and take ownership of their learning by using these (D)Ice Breakers and DeBriefing Templates from TCEA. Build community within your classrooms and give your students choice in self-assessment and reflection. Make a copy of this Google Slides template and edit it to suit your needs.
Elementary Resources
NASA Kids' Club
NASA Kids' Club is a collection games, interactive activities, and images for students in Kindergarten through fourth grade. At the center of the NASA Kids' Club is a set of games and interactive activities arranged on five skill levels. The activities range from simple things like coloring pages and pattern recognition games to more difficult tasks like identifying planets based on clues provided in written and video form.
NASA Space Place
NASA Space Place is for students in fourth through eighth grade, It provides a sizable collection of fun projects, games, animations, and lessons about Earth, space, and technology. Before playing the games or attempting one of the projects, students should explore the animations and facts sections to gain some background information. The games section offers thirty games covering all of the subjects in the animations and facts sections.
Secondary Resources
Number Gossip
Tanya Khovanova, the second female to become the gold medalist at the International Mathematical Olympiads, has designed a website where students can type in a number and get all kinds of facts about that particular number. I typed in the number 70 and below are two of interesting facts about 70.
- 70 is the smallest weird number.
- 70 is the largest known number n such that 2n has a digit sum of n (The only other such number known is 5.)
Information that isn't fully explained in the fact statement has clickable links for students to learn more about that information. For example, there was a place I could click to learn about weird numbers.
Interactive Periodic Tables
Google provides this version of a 3D periodic table. The table offers information about each of the elements, and students can explore their properties. They will see its Bohr model representation, which shows a planetary diagram of the components.
PBS Learning Media offers an interactive periodic table as well. One item that will catch students' attention is the mystery elements activity. They must drag mystery elements into their correct positions in the periodic table. Each mystery element provides information that students can use to decide placement. Also, PBS Learning Media offers a lesson plan for grades 6-8 and 9-12 to introduce the periodic table.
Wlonk provides one of the easiest, most information-rich interactive periodic tables. It includes examples of the role each element plays in our lives. For example, titanium is what we rely on for aerospace. Students will not only find out what elements are useful or used for, but they will also learn a bit about the elements themselves.
Brain Break
Art Coloring Book
Google Arts & Culture has a digital "Art Coloring Book" where students can choose a piece of artwork and color it the way they want by selecting a color and then clicking where they want to use it. The video below provides a quick tutorial on the various tool and options in the coloring book.
A printable coloring book with some additional activities can be downloaded here and used for offline brain breaks.
Makerspace Resources
Lego Maker Cards
Peggy Reimers, Director of Professional Development for the Texas Computer Education Association, has created and shared a set of free, printable Lego Maker Cards to help inspire your students when they are working with Legos. There are six pages of cards with eight cards on each page. Peggy recommends that "For the classroom, you could put out a colored set each month or use them to group students. Groups are formed by the color of card each student pulls. Then, as a group, they could decide which activity to build."
Scratch Resources
Scratch for Educators: Get Started With Scratch
Whether you’re brand new to Scratch or have been teaching your students how to use Scratch for years, you will find valuable information about teacher accounts, tutorials, community resources, and more in this post on the Scratch blog. Bookmark the blog so you can refer to it again as needed. New posts are added monthly.
Scratch Ideas Page
The Scratch Ideas Page is full of tutorials embedded right in the Scratch project editor! Encourage students to introduce themselves with Animate a Name. On this page you will also be able to download free, printable Coding Cards for a physical version of the tutorials.
Google Workspace
Using Shortcuts to Organize Your Google Drive
Watch the short video below to learn how to use shortcuts to add files shared with you to your Google Drive as well as how to use shortcuts to have your own files accessible from more than one place in your Drive.
Google Classroom Add-ons
Are you a Google Classroom user in a district/school that purchases Google Workspace for Education Plus edition or the Teaching & Learning upgrade? If so, check out the new features added to Google Classroom to help you create and deliver instruction more efficiently. Ask your Google administrator to set-up these add-ons so you can start using them right away.
- Integrated add-ons will allow you to use education tools like Kahoot! and IXL right in Classroom
- Do you use Clever or other student information systems(SIS)? Now you can sync your class rosters from your SIS to Classroom.
- A new Screencast app, built into Chrome, helps students and teachers share their ideas in class by creating their own screencasts. Teachers can also record, trim, transcribe, and share recording for the students to review anytime.
- Practice Sets, still in beta form, offers students a more personalized path to learning. Students will experience interactive lessons that will provide immediate feedback and support.
Use the Getting Started with Google Classroom Slide Deck for step-by-step directions on how to add these features to your Classroom.
Apple
Apple Education Community
- General Topics
- Teaching & Learning — for educators to exchange ideas, share lesson plans and guides, explore lesson ideas and other teaching resources
- Coaching — for educators who support peers through professional learning
- Leadership — for school leaders to share challenges, insights, and solutions
- Deployment & Management — for technical administrators involved in the implementation and management of Apple devices in educational settings
- Apple Groups — a home base for educators to find groups and connect with other like-minded educators, further their professional learning, discuss Apple Teacher programs and resources, and more
The site is free to use and requires no specific log-in or educator credentials.
Microsoft 365
Class Home Page for Microsoft Teams
The video below is a tutorial on the new Class Home Page in Microsoft Teams Education 2022. This is one of the new features in Microsoft Teams for education and this class home page is now enabled by default in all Class Teams, both new and existing. The Homepage in Teams lets you easily set up a one-stop shop. The template includes Assignments, Calendar, Resources, and Files. You can easily edit the page to add, remove and reorganize the content. The Teams Class Homepage is rolling out in August 2022 and will finish by September. This has been a top request features in Education over the past few years.
Michigan Learning Channel
- Read, Write, ROAR: "All About the Alphabet and the Letter A"
- Math Mights: "More or Fewer"
- Family Math: "Make a Duck Necklace and Count to 7"
- Read, Write, ROAR!: "Shh... It's Time for School!"
- Math Mights: "Compare Data"
- POP Check: "Thumb Check"
- Meet the Helpers: "Speaking out Against Unfairness"
Grade 2
- Read Write ROAR!: "All About Maps and -ar- Words"
- Math Mights: "Subtract a 1-Digit from a 2-Digit Number"
- POP Check: "More We Get Together"
- ArchiTREKS: "Structures"
- Read, Write, ROAR!: "Meet Michigan and Compound Words"
- Math Mights: "Different Units to Measure Area"
- Meet the Helpers: "Counselor"
- Live from the Opera House: "New Frontiers: Adventures in Space"
Grades 4-6
- Extra Credit: "Mental Health"
- Story Pirates TV: "Alex Gets a Billboard"
- DIY Science Time: "Thermal Energy"
Grades 9-12
- A new series of Visual Thinking Strategies is now available to help students think deeply about things they read and the media they consume.
Discovery Streaming
Discovery Streaming Supports for Learners
Discovery also provides additional types of support within Discovery Streaming for English Language Learners, Special Education, literacy, STEM, social-emotional learning, digital citizenship, and more. To learn more about any of these topics, click to Explore Hot Topics.
Oakland County Kids' Clean Water Calendar Contest.
Enter now for the Oakland County Kids' Clean Water Calendar Contest.
- Who: 4th - 5th grade students in Oakland County
- Contest Theme: We can all help to keep Oakland County's lakes. rivers, streams, and watersheds Clean!
- Information to submit artwork can be found on the Oakland County Water Resources Site.
Free Professional Learning Opportunity
EduProtocols One at a Time - Free, Virtual, Professional Learning Series
EduProtocols are lesson frames that can be used with any curriculum and are designed to allow students to engage in discussions, practice thinking with agility, and develop creativity as they show what they know. In this professional learning series each session will focus on one EduProtocol. You will experience the EduProtocol from the student viewpoint and learn tips and tricks for using the protocol in your classroom. Templates to help you easily get started with the protocols will also be shared. Attend as many sessions as fit your interests and schedule. Click on the title of the session to register for that session. Registration for the last three sessions will be available soon.
Session One: Iron Chef - Thursday, September 15, 2022 - 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Inspired by the "Iron Chef" cooking shows, this student-centered, gamified-slideshow, EduProtocol helps students flex quick research reps in 15 minutes or less. The protocol builds in individual accountability and engages students in reading, summarizing, creating and presenting to their peers, while covering content and connecting to standards.
Session Two: BookaKucha - Wednesday, September 21, 2022 - 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
BookaKucha is designed so that each student develops their own book report at the same time as their classmates regardless of the page number the student is reading. Everybody pauses the reading at the same time and develops four slides based on where they are in the book. Students present three of their slides within a one minute snapshot. No more book reports to take home and spend hours correcting! BookaKucha can be adapted for use with textbooks and articles.
Session Three: Great American Race - Wednesday, October 5, 2022 from 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
In the Great American Race, students anonymously contribute a slide to a class deck (facts, information, or vocabulary). Then, in the second half of the activity, teams of students race to identify each slide. Use this protocol to introduce a new unit of study, to support investigations, to learn about something new, or to review material.
Session Four: Sketch and Tell - Wednesday, October 19, 2022 from 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
In Sketch and Tell, students create a visual image using the shape tools in Google slides or with paper/pencil of the central concept. They pair-share and explain their image to a partner, then individually write an explanatory paragraph.
Session Five: Thin Slides and Thick Slides - Thursday, November 10, 2022 from 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
In Thin Slides, each student creates a single slide to be part of a larger class slide deck. Each student slide contains one word and one image in response to a prompt given by the teacher. Slides are built in 3-5 minutes and then each student gives an 8-12 second presentation describing how their word and image relate to the prompt. Thick Slides are basically a deconstructed paragraph - title, subtitle, five to six facts, two to three pictures, and a couple of citations. They are a great way to scaffold report writing.
Session Six: Number Mania - Wednesday, November 16, 2022 from 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Number Mania is a lesson frame where students create an infographic to show key information about a topic that is being studied. Students gather information from the source(s) you provide and submit numbers and facts to a shared document. Students then use this data to create their infographics. You provide students with a template that has been front loaded with icon style images that fit the topic and then you watch the magic happen as your students create amazing and powerful infographics.
Session Seven: Game of Quotes - Thursday, December 1, 2022 from 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
If you are looking for a fun way to get your students more deeply engaged in silent reading, then Game of Quotes is for you. What happens in this protocol is that students have their usual silent reading time but at the end of silent reading time, they are given a prompt for round one. The students flip through the pages of their books looking for a good response to the prompt. They then share their responses and vote on a winner. Attendees at this session should have a book or magazine they are currently reading to use for game play.
Oakland Schools Digital Learning Team Information
Previous Editions of Our Newsletters
Subscribe to Our News
Oakland Schools Digital Learning Twitter posts can be found at os_edtech.
When you are posting to Twitter about things related to digital learning and educational technology, don't forget to use the hashtag #oakedtech.
Using the hashtag will help Oakland County educators, who are interested in the effective use of digital learning, to connect and better collaborate with each other.
Oakland Schools Digital Learning Consultants
Laura.Cummings@oakland.k12.mi.us
248-209-2283
Vinos Kassab
Vinos.Kassab@oakland.k12.mi.us
248-209-2229