IHMS Tech Tips

Newsela  is a website that provides nonfiction current event articles on various topics at a variety of reading levels.  Students can search the articles by keyword/category and then select their appropriate Lexile level if that is something they know.  Their MAP scores will give you a Lexile range for them. Every article is available at a variety of different reading levels with the vocabulary and sentence structure increasing in difficulty as the Lexile increases.  There is also a corresponding quiz or writing prompt with each article. Newsela syncs with Google Classroom so you can either import your Newsela into your Google Classrooms, or give your students a class code to use to join. Once you have your students signed in to Newsela, you can assign an article.  Students should select their Lexile level (they can always play around with this and work with you to decide what their best fit is).  Newsela will assign a writing prompt with each article.  Students then an

Edpuzzle is a site that allows you to create lessons from videos. These videos can be ones you've created and saved on your computer, or you can pull video content from the the places listed below in the screenshot such as YouTube, Khan Academy, etc. You can insert questions, crop them, and it all syncs seamlessly with Google Drive.  You also have the ability to track students' progress as they work through the video. To find a video that will work for the content you are working on in class,  simply search for keywords on your lesson topic: Once you have found a video that you'd like to use for your lesson, you start editing it.  You can shorten it, pause the video and ask a questions as the video goes along, or leave the video as is and ask a question at the end.  There are a variety of options. Here I have chosen a video on plagiarism, paused it, and inserted a question on the right that students will respond to by typing on their screen as they watch it.

A few weeks ago, Blake mentioned Pear Deck , a site where you can import or create interactive presentation slides and then students can join via a code. Pear Deck syncs seamlessly with Google Drive which is a great feature for both students and teachers. The free version of Pear Deck only allows for 5 free imports (from your Google Drive or computer), so most of the "decks" that you do will be retyping worksheets or slideshows that you've created.  It does, however, have a share feature which would allow for each department to not keep reinventing the wheel, and for teachers to parcel out the work for a given unit. Once you have created a deck and are ready to share with students, they go to the Pear Deck website and join your specific session, much like Kahoot. After all of your students have joined, you can begin your session.  Students can type, use their finger to write on the trackpad, or use the Wacom tablets .  You can lock down the ability to a