Blog Archives

"Googled It!" EDU Style!

2/26/2019

#TeachSC Inspired!

Anyone who knows me, knows I love a good Twitter chat! I learn so much from other people in such a short period of time. It's the best FREE PD out there! Jed Dearybury leads a great chat every Tuesday night from 8:00-9:00 EST called #TeachSC. It's a chat sponsored by the Palmetto State Teacher Association, but anyone can join!

Re-Think EDU

This is not the "official" name of the chat on 2/26/19, just the name I gave it to remember what the chat was about. If you want to read all the tweets during this chat, check out this Wakelet collection.

Does Homework Have to Be A Bad Thing?

When were discussing homework during our chat, most people disagreed with it, including me! However, some places still require it as a grade.
If that's the case, we need to get creative! That's when I had a thought...
We "Google" things that we are curious about on a daily basis, right?
Why not use this with students an authentic, real-world research and reflection homework assignment ?!

My thought was to call this homework reflection journal "Googled It EDU" or #GoogledItEDU.
Let's say we give our students a notebook (physical or digital) to archive their daily Google searches. Of course, you'd have to give them some guidelines as to what's appropriate and what's not before letting them run with this idea.
I can picture it with an index at the front so they can keep track of the pages and topics, kind of like a Bullet Journal. If it's digital, it can be a Google Doc with a Table of Contents or a Google Slides presentation that continues throughout the year with a Table of Contents on the first page linked to the corresponding slide.

Imagine all the passion and curiosity that can be shared on a daily basis! If you want to give them challenges every once in a while on a given topic so they are researching something based on what you are learning about in class, great! Just make sure to keep it mostly student driven!
They'd be researching, having to determine credible resources, writing down individual thoughts & key points so they can remember what they learned. It doesn't have to take long at all. Just maybe, they will spend more time on homework because they've gotten sucked into something that peaks their interest!

I don't have anything created for this yet, but I had to get the idea down and share it so we could come up with ideas together!

How could you use this with your students?

Share your thoughts and ideas by tagging me @specialtechie and Jed @mrdearybury on Twitter! Let's see what we can come up with!
#GoogledItEDU #TeachSC

Thanks for reading! ~Pam

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#PottyPD with Wakelet

2/23/2019

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The #WakeletWave has taken over!

Last summer, I was looking for a way to archive one of my favorite twitter chats with a new tool since I couldn't use Storify anymore. After a quick Google search, I found Wakelet and I was hooked! I started using to archive the #PD4uandMe chats that I co-moderate with my friends Teresa Gross & Emily Francis. Once I started using Wakelet for archiving Twitter chats, I realized I could do SO much more with it! It also turned into my FREE alternative to using Smore for newsletters. Smore is still a great resource, but I didn't want to spend the extra money to purchase an educators account. So now I use Wakelet for just about anything I would curate for sharing or research purposes. Honestly, I use it more now than I do Pinterest. That's saying a lot!

#PottyPD

My favorite way to use Wakelet is for #PottyPD! Sounds crazy, right? The first time I heard of this was on Twitter (shocker, I know). There are lots of different forms of this "captive audience" professional development out there like Learning in the Loo, Bathroom Briefs, etc. Here's a great post below from Tara Martin about this school bathroom PD craze! I use the plastic flyer stands to display a PDF visual (created in Google Drawings) in all the bathrooms and change it out once a month. I've had the same experiences as Tara mentions in her blog post. My visual is basically a teaser though. The links and more details are on the Wakelet version that I share through Google Classroom and email to the teachers. So there's a lot of GSuite EDU app smashing going on here!

I also add a 3 question Google Form to the bottom of it with a "duty free lunch" give away to encourage others to read it & try new things! I may not have money to give away really cool things, but I can give the gift of time !

From Tara Martin's Blog linked here.

Check out my 2018-2019 #PottyPD Collections here!

Give Wakelet a try today!

There are SO many ways to use Wakelet, I've only covered one today. Check out this blog post for a Getting Started Guide. You can also follow me once you create an account to see how I use it. Look at the people I follow or just click "Explore" to see how the rest of the world uses it. Join the #WakeletWave today!

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"Googled It!" EDU Style!

#TeachSC Inspired!

Re-Think EDU

Does Homework Have to Be A Bad Thing?

How could you use this with your students?

#PottyPD with Wakelet

The #WakeletWave has taken over!

#PottyPD

Check out my 2018-2019 #PottyPD Collections here!

Give Wakelet a try today!

Author

Archives

Short Cuts

"Googled It!" EDU Style!

#TeachSC Inspired!

Re-Think EDU

​Does Homework Have to Be A Bad Thing?

How could you use this with your students?

#PottyPD with Wakelet

The #WakeletWave has taken over!

#PottyPD

Check out my 2018-2019 #PottyPD Collections here!

Give Wakelet a try today!

Author

Archives

Short Cuts

Does Homework Have to Be A Bad Thing?