Author: Lex Henderson

When I first found out I had to take an ED Tech class, I thought to myself what do I need to know how to do this for? But now, with all that is changing in the world and this monumental shift that is occur in modern day education, I am so glad I have had this class to hone skills as well as learn to work with the numerous apps out there that can only aid in making learning accessible both inside the classroom and outside in a virtual learning setting. With all the knowledge I have accumulated from this class I am confident in taking the next leap into the ever-changing teaching realm.

Towards the beginning of the semester we worked with apps like Google Tour Creator and Google MyMaps. During this time I chose to work with Google Tour Creator and create a fun lesson that could be used to introduce historical monuments throughout portland. This app allows for history lessons to become a bit more interactive and meaningful by allowing students the chance to see virtual tours of different areas.

Let’s Learn History!

As we moved, through the semester we continued to work with other Google tools like Google sites, google slides and google forms. Below is an assignment I created using forms that could be used as a whole class review or an individual assessment for students.

Can we guess, does it rhyme?

One of my favorite apps to work with was Edpuzzle. This is a site that allows teachers to go into preexisting videos and add questions, voiceovers, and notes to help keep their learners engaged. It allows teachers to turn videos they may assign into more interactive and meaningful content. For this activity, I decided to work with a kids CrashCourse YouTube video about the sun and work to enhance it with questions and notes that could help focus on key ideas of the videos—this was meant for 1st-2nd students.

All the sun does for us!

The more we got to explore the different ed tech tools for the classroom, the more I realized they could all be put together to help make something great for our learners and their parents in this current time of distance learning. For my final project I decided to combine a lot of the different tools we worked with in order to create a sample supplemental activity that families could do with their students!

Final project—A Supplemental Activity

Featured image: Pixabay

For my final project I decided to create an online supplement Science activity for 1st graders. The point of this activity is to provide families with the tools and instruction they would need in order to do this lesson with their student(s). The learning target of this lesson is: TWL be able to answer the question, why can you only see stars at night? By watching and discussing key ideas they notice throughout a video. I have used edpuzzle to embed an instructional video with questions and notes that the learner needs to focus on in order to get the answer to their activity question.

With distance learning being the new thing, and many parents not having any idea what to do or how to teach their child, I have created my final project to serve as a simplified lesson plan, that parents of any student should be able to follow. By using google sites as my main technology, I was able to either link, embed or include everything a parent would need to complete this lesson with their student, making the daunting task of teaching their student a little less scary by having everything in one place, neat and organized.

featured image: Pixabay

Using book creator I created a book that can be used for students age K-2. The lesson surrounding this book really focuses on what to do one another person—in the instance of the book another student—tries to dip into your bucket. If I wanted to make this more meaningful to the student as a lesson we could create the story as a class based on real scenarios they may need help working through.

Featured image: Pixabay

I really enjoyed using Padlet, out of the two I tried, it was the winner. Its platform is very easy to use and I didn’t run into any user errors. I like how it allows you to search for different things within the app —images, websites, videos, gifs, etc. Padlet also is very visually appealing and friendly, it allows for everything to be in the users sight. It was also very easy to get an embed code and share it on to this site. If I were to use this app with my class I could use it to have them create a ‘get to know me‘ board at the beginning of the year that included an array of different modes to demonstrate who they are and what they like.

This was what I made with Wakelet, I don’t know if it was just not compatible with my device but it was not working. I tried it on both Safari and google and it said that my browser wasn’t supported. When trying to get the embed code for this it was not producing me with one —even though there was a button that allowed for it. I feel like this could be a great app to use for the right individual but it wasn’t for me.

Featured image: Pixabay

I really enjoyed using Edpuzzle. It was easy to use and I think it is such a great concept in order to keep students engaged in the video, especially longer videos where they could easily zone out and not gain the information you had intended.

My video is treated towards 1st and 2nd grade students who are learning about the sun and different concepts of the universe! It could be used as an intro video to a bigger lesson

Featured image: Pixabay

I used keynote PowerPoint and exported it into a movie in order to create this screen casted video on how I would show students in my classroom the important steps I would want them to do when creating a google slides. I think this video could be used for a second grade and above classroom when students have fully mastered the concept of logging into their google accounts. I think this type of activity is a great way to create and save an instructional video for students to refer back to. The one thing that was a challenge was figuring out how long to make each slide when it was exported into a movie.

Featured image by Pixabay

With adobe spark video, I have created a fun little video that could be used to remind students the proper steps to washing their hands and why it is important!

Featured image: Pixabay

I’m from an island, 

A place filled with hiking wonders 

From beach days and sunshine. 

I am from grass on my bare feet, 

and pick up trucks on the street—Toyota Tacomas

I’m from lots of food

I’m from lots of love from my parents and family 

I have family near and far 

I think using Adobe Spark page is a very creative way to tell stories! It does take some time to get used to the format and the way that the different pictures can be set up with text. In a younger grade classroom I think it could be a fun way to maybe create one that contains an image and fun fact about each of your students that they could share with the class and have it be all in once place. Just another way you could work to foster community in the beginning of the school year!

Authors: Alexis Henderson & Kali Tagomori-Lai

This activity is intended for a 3rd grade and up science lesson. This website contains an informational section which includes an article and video about the life cycle of a sunflower. It also contains a section that tests the students knowledge on everything they would have learned from the video and article. By the end of this lesson, students should be able to identify the different stages in the life cycle of a sunflower. Along with the acquisition of additional sunflower facts! 

This activity is intended for early elementary grade students who are working on rhyming and finding patterns to understand why words rhyme! *independent use: 1st-2nd — note: students may require a tutorial on how to use the forum. It may also be easier to have student complete the assignment in small groups at a time that way an adult is able to help with any technical issues they may have in filling out the google forum.

This could be used as a pre-assessment to gauge what your students already know about rhyming or if they are already able to pick up patterns. It can then be used as a post assessment to see how much growth has happened at the end of a lesson or unit on rhyming. This activity could also be used within a kindergarten classroom and completed as a whole class in order to introduce the concept of rhyming.

When used as a pre-assessment, students in 1st grade are not expected to have a high knowledge of rhyming patterns. However, when being used as a post assessment students should have a better understanding of deciphering which words rhyme and which do not.

Featured photo: Pixabay

This activity is meant to introduce different historical aspects located right here in Portland while simultaneously providing the students with visuals. The virtual tour contains 6 different historical sights all within the greater Portland area. By introducing the students to just a few important places throughout history, they are able to gain a little more insight about the area they live and the importance of each place in Portland history. This activity can be used as a basic intro to these sites at a 1st grade level or could used as a precursor to a more in-depth lesson on a specific place within the tour.

Image Source Pixabay

Authors: Kali Tagomori-Lai & Alexis Henderson

For this lesson, students will practice telling time by using their knowledge of clocks in order to tell time on different style clocks. By connecting the times to the class schedule students are able to find meaning in the assignment as it is relevant to their day to day schedule. *intended for grades 2-3

Photos source: google copyright free