Month: October 2021

Students in grades 3-6 can use Storia, a collection of over 1,200 eBooks; hand-selected to support Ohio’s learning standards.  Storia offers students unlimited and simultaneous access to nonfiction and fiction eBooks. Reading teachers love Storia for its support of Ohio’s ELA learning standards. But content area teachers can use the titles too! Each of the over 1200 eBooks supports 3-6 grade standards for science, social studies, or math as well as reading and writing.

Finding the eBooks

Start by selecting eBooks in the navigation bar at the top of the screen. You’ll then have two ways to find eBooks read more

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Whether it’s from NWEA, iReady, ALEKS or state testing, you have data.  Technology has made this access to data simple, but using the data to achieve student growth in the classroom is a whole different story.  Why does the student care about what the latest score suggests?  In many cases, the student doesn’t.  So how do you get students interested in data?  Simple…get them engaged in learning.

Last August, education author Weston Kieschnick spoke at a conference hosted by the NWOESC.  Weston preached throughout the presentation that “Curiosity is the prerequisite to engagement.”  His message was so simple, yet profound, especially when you consider how education tends to frontload data to “inspire” student learning.  The reality is that most students are not inspired by seeing their numbers.   read more

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Last week I was invited to tour Edgerton’s new STEAM Space by high school science teacher Tracy Rendleman who has with the assistance of the district administration and fellow science teachers Olivia Schaffner and Seth Schroeder, built a new learning space in the space formerly occupied by the library.

We started with a visit to her Biology class who were busy turning a pile of random lego bricks into something. These students are experiencing their introduction to form and function via STEAM  by trying to make something using their imagination. I asked the students if they liked playing with Legos again. There was a mixed response. One student noted that “I don’t know what to make. ” This highlighted for me the importance of trying these types of activities to re-engage the students using their imagination and to solve problems. read more

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Last week’s Tech Tuesday’s article introduced Mote, a Chrome extension that lets you easily add voice comments and audio clips to shared documents, assignments, forms, and emails.  During a recent MoteCon, Stephanie Howell from Pickerington Local School District graciously shared a B-I-N-G-O template she designed to work with Mote. Who doesn’t love B-I-N-G-O, right?! 

The Mote B-I-N-G-O cards could be used as choice boards. Click here to make a copy of the B-I-N-G-O Google Slides template. The template includes six completely editable sample boards. You could revise the template to create a “This or That” activity, an assessment, a book review, just to name a few. The following example shows how you can edit the template. read more

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Mote is a Google Chrome extension that allows you to add voice comments and audio to shared documents, assignments, emails, forms, and websites. After installing the extension, Mote integrates into Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Gmail, and Classroom’s Stream and Private Comments views. The free version provides 30-seconds of recording time.

An example of a teacher providing a comment in a Google Doc:

After installing the extension, the Mote button will appear on the comments card in Google Workspace apps. The free version edit mode lets you download the recording if desired and translate the top message in a different language, not the actual recording. read more

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