Resources
Technology Integration Matrix (TIM): This resource can be used to help teachers introduce new technologies purposefully, with the ultimately goal of independent, collaborative, and authentic use by students to accomplish learning goals.
ISTE Standards for Students: This resource can be used during the instructional planning process and as a guide for 21st century learning. These standards can also be used to evaluate how to help students grow and develop new or more refined technology skills.
Storyboard That: This online software is a digital comic strip creator. This website falls into the graphics tools category.
Google Docs and Google Slides: These are online document and presentation software tools. Storage is cloud-based and students are able to generate evidence of learning.
Death by PowerPoint (and how to fight it): This slide share presentation is built to help viewers understand how to create visually-pleasing, professional slide decks. It outlines many mistakes that should be avoided when creating high-quality presentations for others.
Pixabay: This website offers copyright-free images that can be used in any presentation, movie project, or other work that is published on the Internet.
16 Ideas for Student Projects Using Docs, Slides, and Forms: From the Cult of Pedagogy, this website has lots of great ideas on how to implement Google Basic Suite and Google Forms into the curriculum. My favorite idea is to use a running Google Doc as a super simple blogging platform.
How to Use Google Sheets in the K-12 Classroom: This website contains many great suggestions for how to utilize Google Sheets in a variety of subject areas.
TED Talks: This YouTube channel has archived all of the TED Talks published on the TED website. These can be useful in humanities classrooms by pairing the talks with document-based questions that require students to pause, rewatch, and think.
5 Empowering and Inspirational Videos for Students, Teachers from Soul Pancake: This blog post from Emerging Tech provides links to 5 different inspirational videos from the Soul Pancake channel on YouTube. These videos could be used as writing prompts or discussion starters.
Voicethread: A social media platform where students can post images, audio recordings, and video clips, then respond to one another's thoughts.
Projects by Jen: This website is a hub of multi-classroom connections that are arranged by Jen Wagner, a fellow southern California educator. Teachers can sign up to participate in a range of global projects with other classrooms around the world. What great resource for creating a connected classroom!
Ideas for Using Minecraft in the Classroom: This Edutopic blog post by Andrew Miller offers suggestions for how to utilize Minecraft in a variety of content areas. Of particular interest is Miller's argument for increasing voice and choice in assessments using Minecraft.
10 Ways to Use Minecraft in the Classroom: This article by Scholastic outlines ideas for Minecraft integration in a variety of subject areas. I particularly like the suggestion of having students built out scenes from novels they are reading.
Favorite Tech Tool For Social Studies Classes: This article by KQED suggests nine different technology tools than can be integrated into Social Studies and English Language Arts cross-curricular lessons. Resources range from tools used to organize learning resources, to tools used to create artifacts of learning.
Using Technology to Motivate Students to Learn Social Studies: This article, published by CITE Journal, provides specific examples of how technology can be integrated in Social Studies curriculum, why teachers are implementing it, and how its use can impact student motivation. This is helpful in developing a rationale for the use of technology in my classroom during cross-curricular lessons.
Book Creator: This tool can be used by students to create eBooks. Book Creator is browser-based and free, which makes it a budget-friendly tool that fits in with my 1:1 Chromebook environment.
Analyze a Photo: This graphic organizer is published by the National Archives and can be used to analyze primary source images within a cross-curricular lesson. For example, this tool could become an excellent pre-writing activity for a fictional narrative pertaining to a specific historical event or time period. A person in a primary source image could be developed as the narrator, and details from photo could be used to add authenticity to the narrative.
The 7 Greatest Challenges Facing Education Technology: This article, published by EdTech Magazine, outlines a variety of obstacles that stand in the way of meaningful technology integration in the classroom. Identifying the obstacles is the first step to developing solutions, so this article is an excellent jumping off point for diving into the issues.
Problems with Technology in the Classroom (and Solutions): Published on the GoGuardian Blog, this article offers some solutions to several obstacles that stand in the way of technology integration. The author presents several tough scenarios and then proposes strategies to handle the challenges.
Accessible Technology Helps Students with Disabilities Pursue STEM Degrees: EdTech Magazine published this article about how the use of accessible technology in the classroom has helped students with special needs achieve more. Some of the points raised provide an excellent rationale for why SpEd students should have the resources they require in order to be successful.
Digital Education Shouldn't Bypass the Disabled: This opinion piece is published by the Boston Globe and outlines a rationale for why accessible technology is so important for students with special needs. This source was helpful in writing my own defense of SpEd technology spending.