Tyler's Tech Tips
January 2018 Edition
Padlet Update, Keyboard Shortcuts, Interactive Math, Big Huge Labs, and Team Drives
Padlet Updates
Padlet is a formative assessment tool that I have written about before, but with some new updates, it has gotten even more useful. Padlet now offers a feature which allows students to vote up, comment, grade, react, or rate other posts left by the teacher or classmates. Not all of these new features will be the best fit for your needs, but the liking and rating tools could have a big impact on collecting data in your classroom.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are a simple way to help save you time. Not only can keyboard shortcuts help you copy and paste something (copy = ctrl+c and paste = ctrl+v) but they can help you within Microsoft Word, Excel, iMovie, etc. Click on this link to learn shortcuts for Windows 10 or here to learn shortcuts on a Mac.
Because there are so many shortcuts, looking at this can be overwhelming. Start by trying to learn a few each week.
Free Elementary Math Practice
iknowit is a free interactive math practice site (aligned to the common core) for students in grades kindergarten through 5th grade. Users of iknowit can either use the website without logging in or they can sign up to be a member. Both options are completely free! Becoming a member allows teachers or parents to create a roster and track individual students progress. Currently, the only content available is Math, but more subjects may come eventually.
Big Huge Labs
Big Huge Labs is a free site that allows users to take an image and use it to create a poster, magazine cover, jigsaw, trading card, calendar, etc. The site is a little clunky, but once you learn how to use it, it makes an amazing project tool for your students to use. For example, let's say your students just learned about the Revolutionary War. As a final assessment, a teacher could have his/her students create a magazine cover using this site. The cover could include a picture of the Revolutionary War with different text taglines explaining some of the most important battles. Designing the cover is all done on the website and does not require users to know how to use expensive software like Publisher. Click here to check out Big Huge Labs.
Google Team Drives
Finally.....Google now has a feature inside Drive which allows a team to collaborate. Team Drive allows members to share files and information where all members are owners of the files. If a team member leaves, all of the files remain in the Team Drive even if they were the original owner.
This feature would be great for grade-level teachers, administrative teams, the yearbook class, or other school groups.