Images in the Public Domain

Finding appropriate images in the public domain for lessons and presentations can be difficult. Google images are not the place to go. Pixabay was created to have a place to go to find high quality clip art and illustrations that are free to use. Registration is free and "You can use any Pixabay image without attribution in digital and printed form, even for commercial applications." You will see a few Shutterstock images at the top of the results page, those are not free but are advertising to keep the site free. Everything below those images (the ones without the Shutterstock watermark) are free to use.

New Blog Design!

This summer I visited a lot of teaching blogs and loved reading and learning. But they also looked so cute! I started checking the bottom of every blog design I liked and made note of the blog designer. I kept coming back to Design by Christi. So I went to her page and started the process to have her redesign my site. Last week it was my turn. After giving her my color and theme ideas, she sent me some samples. We went back and forth a few times but I just knew that we were on the right track. I love everything about my new blog design! I love the colors and style and I love the nature and earth clip art! I hope someday to be able to do some of these design techniques and coding myself but for now I'll leave it to the pros. Thanks so much Christi! I'm inspired to add more to my blog, if for no other reason than to come visit it ;)
 

40 Ways to Use Google Apps for Education

Here is an amazing resource for google apps for education.

40 Ways to Use Google Apps for Education

Check it out - try one thing new this week.

Class Dojo Continued :)

Here's a little more about Class Dojo. In Dojo, you can set up your class with all of your students and it will assign a random monster avatar. You or students can change the avatar. You can change them under "Edit Class" and students can change them when they create their own account. To create a student account, go to "Reports", click "Student Accounts", print and send home the Student Codes. While there, you can click on "Parent Accounts", print and send home Parent Codes. Parent accounts let parents check the status of their student and you can message them individually or as a group.
One thing I decided to try this upcoming year, is to set up Team Points. I added my five table groups and gave them unique avatars. Changing avatars is done under "Edit Class". You can choose a new monster or upload your own images to use. See below.

Then you can also create your own behaviors based on your class. I've added behaviors that work for us and added character traits. Part of our day will be recognizing peers for showing positive character traits. Those nominations and my own observations will be noted here with the character traits also.  You can organize the behaviors in the order that makes it easy for you by numbering them.

Using Class Dojo, it is easy to watch for trends in behaviors. Are there certain times during the day or subjects that are difficult for a student? Am I making sure I'm noticing positive behaviors from every student? Is there anyone who is quietly slipping through the cracks? I'll make a special attempt to spend more time making a connection and noticing positive behaviors.

At the end of each week, we'll note the total points to pay out in the class money and reset the points for the following week. The reset just clears the points from the screen but the student's history of points will still be there.

Class Dojo can be accessed by all devices. I use my laptop when I want to display it on the projector. I have student leaders note good listening behavior on the ipad while I do a read aloud, students also use the ipad to give themselves points for good work. I can also use my phone to give points while leading reading group, or at library, or wherever. This is an amazing, powerful, free app! Give it a try!

Class Dojo Announcement - Going School Wide!

Many of my teacher friends know how much I love Class Dojo! I was even lucky enough to meet Sam, one of the creators of Class Dojo, at ISTE San Diego in 2012. I'm such a fan I asked if I could take a pic with him.

We had a great chat that day and he asked a lot of questions about how Class Dojo could make things better in the classroom. I think that's one of the things that makes this program so good, they go out and find teachers and listen to what we're saying.

For those of you who haven't heard of it, "ClassDojo is a classroom tool that helps teachers improve behavior in their classrooms quickly and easily. It also captures and generates data on behavior that teachers can share with parents and administrators. Better learning behaviors, smoother lessons and hassle-free data - and its free!" Kids love the monster avatars, and love seeing their points grow. One of their favorite jobs is to be the Class Dojo checker during a read aloud. One person gets to hold the ipad and watch for great listening behavior while I read. They also love giving themselves points for good work.

Now on to the big announcement. Class Dojo just announced the ability to go School Wide! What does that mean? It means that now teachers who team can connect and share their students! You'll be able to use Class Dojo with other teachers who share your students at your school, share rosters, and track student progress across classes. If you Job Share, it will be easier than ever to share the class. When students go to a special class, that teacher can give points that you will be able to see. Team teaching, student teacher, teacher's aide, all areas where this might be a great tool to have!

There are two ways - Shared Classes and Shared Students. Read all about it here on the Class Dojo Blog and get the specific details and how to right here > How do Class Dojo school wide features work?

Classroom Clickers in a Low Tech Classroom

Have you ever seen examples of classrooms with clickers? Have you tried to figure out how you could get your hands on a set? Donations? Donors Choose? Second job? 
Now you don't have to as long as you have paper and one device - a smart phone or a tablet will do.
Plickers is an iOS or Android app that the teacher uses to scan student cards. Each student has a paper card with a unique visual code. The code has four sides labeled A, B, C, and D. The student turns the card and holds it up for the teacher to scan. The app scans the codes, records who the teacher assigned each card to, and captures the answer each student chose.

What an amazing app! You don't need to be a 1to1 class, you don't need a set of ipads or clickers, you don't need to share devices among kids, all you need is paper. The cards can be scanned from a distance so the teacher could stay in front of the class and just scan the group while they hold up the cards.

Image from https://www.plickers.com/support

Check it out. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/plickers/id701184049?mt=8

What if Everybody Did That?

Last year I found this book, What If Everybody Did That? and used it as a read aloud for my class. It sparked some great conversations and fun scenarios. The story goes through a day in the life of a little boy who makes some minor poor choices. But then it is pointed out how bad this would be if everyone did that. From leaving trash on the ground to calling out in class so many small things become big deals quickly. This coming year, I'd love to have the class create their own book patterned in a similar way after doing the read aloud. I found this great lesson plan all set.

Lesson Plan - Click Here

Here is a free resource for class book pages TPT Book Page

I hope you enjoy this book as much as we did.

Playing Around with Classroom Design

There are many versions of the "In Our Classroom" poster and I decided to play around with it with my Photoshop. I'm still not sure if I want to use the black and white or color version. Feel free to download and use it yourself. I searched to see where the original poster came from but haven't found the author. If you know the origin, please let me know so I can give credit. If you'd like to use this poster - it is formatted for 11x17. You should be able to print it out at your local office supply store. Here's a link to the images in jpg and pdf file forms Click Here

 

Google Apps for Education

So SMUSD has switched over to GMail and all things Google. I'm loving it. I just completed the Google Educator course and passed Yippee! For those just wanting the basics, there is a great intro course and you can pick and choose what parts you want to know more about.
Google for Ed Training

Over the summer I will be posting some tutorials on how GAfE will help teachers be more efficient and how it will help help us manage our paper load. One of the best things I started this past year was use Google Docs for student writing and use the Add-On Doctopus to copy, share, and organize the files. Here's a great explanation by Jay Atwood on how it works.
Doctopus

Anybody Can Learn to Code

In December, our school participated in The Hour of Code, an opportunity for every student try computer programming. This was an amazing experience with even our youngest students giving it a try. 
Since then, my students have continued to learn by going through the K-8 Intro to Computer Science course at http://learn.code.org/.
This is a great opportunity for every student. The tutorials are all there to walk the students through all of the steps.
One of my students completed the course in a couple weeks, another is close to completion and the rest are working on it at their own pace. The two who are farthest along are mentoring a 1st grader who is interested in learning also. 

First Day of School Forms

We all have information we really need to get that first day of school to help everything run smoothly. Primary teachers especially, like to have lunch and dismissal info at the very beginning of the day. But the reality is, with 30 or more kids and families all coming in at the same time, you may miss someone. They might not see the form, the sign up list, or whatever it is you have out. Then you need to somehow make contact on the busiest of all days, the first day of school.

I decided to put my Google Geekiness into this and try to lessen the need for me to interrogate make contact with every single person. Using a Google form means many of my families can get me this info prior to school starting (we don't have "Meet the Teacher" events at our school.) And if they missed the link that I will put up on the class list, and on my website, I will have it on the front door both with the link and a QR code. Then I can concentrate on greeting my new kids and families and calming the criers helping everyone feel welcome.

Google Forms are awesome for this task. I created this one with just the info I needed to get through the day - student and parent name, quick contact info, lunch info and dismissal info. I'll save all of the "How can I help your child be more successful this year" questions for a follow up form. 

Here is what it looks like when accessed from a smart phone:

Creating a Google Form is very easy if you haven't tried it before. Here is the Google Forms Tutorial:  https://support.google.com/drive/answer/87809?hl=en

Then, if you want to make it into a QR code, go to a QR creating site like http://www.qrstuff.com/, add the link to the Live Form, and save your QR code. It's that simple.

Edited to add: Of course I will print out several forms for those who do not have internet access or a smart phone. Google Forms has upgraded recently to make printing out the created form just as easy so you don't have to create the form twice.