IHMS Tech Tips

YouTube is one of the most popular websites on the planet...but are you using it in your classroom? If not, you should be!  There are MILLIONS of educational videos on YouTube to supplement your curriculum or you could be creating your own videos to publish to YouTube a la flipped classroom. Edumemic.com gives four ways to use YouTube in the classroom: Bring in videos that show students a more fun side of the lesson. Create YouTube playlists as assignments or as recommended extra resources. Record class lessons or lectures and save them for future viewing (flipped classroom). Take it to the next level (crop, add commentary, include quizzes). By having a Google account, you already have a YouTube account.  Go to YouTube.com and you should already be logged in.  You can search for content by subject area or specific lesson concepts.  Once you find something that pertains to what you are teaching, add it to a playlist.  You can create as many different playlists with as many d

As a student, I remember numerous occasions where I was asked to create a timeline.   I stumbled upon Google Tour Builder last week, so I wanted to share it with you. Originally created so veterans could document and preserve their memories of their time in military service for their families, Google Tour Builder allows you to document places on Google Earth and incorporate text and images along the way.  I immediately saw this being used to recreate the settings of a book or in social studies to document different historical locations.  Students could use it to share important life events of their own as a getting-to-know you activity at the beginning of the year.   Because it is Google, your account is already linked, though you may have to sign in.  You get started by giving your "tour" a name. I did a test tour on a book that I'm reading, so I called my tour the name of the book.  Once your tour is created, you can start adding pins to the map, text, and

Many of you are probably already familiar with Quizlet , a site where you can create flashcards for studying.  Recently, Quizlet has come out with a new feature called Quizlet Live that I'll highlight today, and I'll also mention a few of its other components you may not be aware of yet. The basis for Quizlet begins when you create a study set for your students.  Anything that can be visualized on a set of flashcards can be made into a study set.  You can type each word and definition into Quizlet, or you can import from a saved document.  This set will be utilized for all of the other games and features within Quizlet.  You and your students can get an account using your Google information.   You can then create a class for your students to gain access to your different study sets, or share what you've created with other teachers. There are several different features within Quizlet, other than the standard flashcards (though that is where I would have yo

Thinglink is a free digital tool that allows for any graphic to become interactive.  Consider this as an alternative presentation tool for science experiments, social studies presentations, or any type of research project.  Signing up is easy and can be done with your Google account. Once you/students have established accounts, you can choose from Thinglink's sample media, or upload a picture of your own.  This serves as the backdrop for your presentation. After you have selected your background/theme photo, you will begin to add tags.  Tags are hot spots that make the presentation interactive.  These tags can be links to video, audio, more photos, or you can type text. You can then embed your Thinglink presentation into a Google slideshow, a website, or into Google Classroom.   The site allows for cooperative presentations, as well.  You can upload up to 105 students and they can work on one presentation at the same time.  Students can be invited to do this using