I cannot believe that I had never heard of this website until the company reached out to me and asked me to check them out. I am a huge advocate for promoting tools and resources in the classroom that are authentic, rigorous, and meaningful to my students and to me so when I decided to give Flocabulary a try, I can promise you that I was NOT disappointed. There is so much about the website and the resources that you can find on it that are top notch and my favorite part is that Flocabulary offers what our students are interested in---music, lyrics, and visuals on content that they are learning about in the classroom. BOOM! That is gold! I have partnered up with Flocabulary to bring you something special---a free extended trial to their website! You are going to want to sign up for this....whether you teach 2nd grade or 11th grade....there is something for everyone on this site. Here are my 3 reasons why I LOVE Flocabulary. Because I teach ELA ...
technology
Google Hangout/Skype
If you follow the ever-buzzing Twitter feed, are a lover of all things Google, stay up-to-date on technology, or surf blogs and other social media outlets then you have probably heard about "mystery" classroom video conferencing. The moment that I heard about this new classroom tech tool, I immediately began to research it more. I am always on the lookout for ways that I can help my students connect with the real world, experience learning in a way that is relevant and meaningful to them, and help them become confident, successful individuals. For me, video conferencing with other classrooms, and educators seemed like a great way for me to bring all of those important aspects into my classroom. There are a ZILLION ways that you can incorporate video conferencing with you kiddos, and I think that it is important to note that the way that each of us use it in our classrooms is unique because our kiddos can all have different takeaways from this type of ...
Learning Through Google Docs
I have always been a huge fan of Google Docs/Drive. However, my recent obsession started when I was taking a graduate class that required my classmates and me to do a lot of group work. One of the wonderful teachers in my group suggested that we use Google Docs because we could all edit, share, and work on our documents and presentations together at the same time. Instantly, I became obsessed with the possibilities that a tool, such as Google Docs, could do for me and my students in the classroom. I have some big plans and dreams for what my students will be accomplishing with the help of Google Docs, but I wanted to show you how we started experimenting with the technology tool this week. This post might be a little crazy, but hopefully I can get into words how awesome this tool is! First, you need to have a Google account. I have a personal account and a blog account. I also created a class account for my kiddos to use (Next year, I plan on creating individual email ...
