IHMS Tech Tips

If you are in need of a new class discussion technique, try the Fishbowl!  I watched two weeks ago as Mrs. Biggs conducted one in her classroom for the first time.  The concept is simple: Five seats are placed, in a circle, in the center of the room. All other seats a pushed to the walls for seating for non-participants. There are four students and one empty chair in the circle, the fishbowl, and they are the only ones allowed to speak in the room. There is to be no conversation outside of the circle. The teacher chooses the first students in the circle, at random. The students engage in debate on an issue presented as an open-ended question, by the teacher. When someone wants to enter the circle/conversation, they bring their computer and take the empty seat and a previous member of the circle has to leave. This should be a fluid as the conversation gets under way. The teacher does not participate in the discussion except to provide a new question or to terminate an...

Many of you are still using Scantrons for summative assessment, but did you know that you can save yourself some mileage to the Scantron machine (and paper!) by using Flubaroo or other Google add-ons?  I previously mentioned how to use Skyward to test and grade your students, but there are also add-ons for Google Forms that can simplify your grading.  One such example is Flubaroo.  With this add-on you can: Grade assignments and assessments in under a minute! Get reporting and analysis on student performance. Quickly send scores to students. It's really simple to use.  To get an add-on for your Google spreadsheet, first make sure that your Google form has created a spreadsheet.   Next, from the Google Sheets Add-ons menu, choose "Get add-ons."  Search for Flubaroo from the Add-ons store.  You will only have to do this once. Now that Flubaroo has been added, you can follow the prompts as shown in the below video to grade your assess...

Flippity is a site that allows you to create a variety of classroom items from your Google Sheets. Some examples of templates are: Flash cards Quiz show Spelling words Random name picker Mix & match Certificate Badge tracker Progress indicator MadLibs How does it work?  It's really easy! Think about using Flippity for forming groups, calling on students, tracking progress (pages/minutes read, words per minute, fluency, etc.)

Group outings to Escape Room, BreakoutKC, EscapeKC are very popular right now.  They are the ultimate team-building, problem-solving, and critical thinking challenge, as groups try to solve a riddle or puzzle that correlates to a story. BreakoutEDU has brought this same concept into the classroom.  Instead of being in a specific place to complete the problem-solving, this company has put everything you need into one wooden box. They are $99/piece, but did you know that IH has four of these boxes already?! "Breakout EDU creates ultra-engaging learning games for people of all ages. Games (Breakouts) teach teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, and troubleshooting by presenting participants with challenges that ignite their natural drive to problem-solve." Each box comes with the following items, and the open source lessons show you where to place and how to use each item. Here's how it works: The site has lots of games already cre...