IHMS Tech Tips

OpenEd.com is a free website from the ACT Academy that pulls content and resources from a variety of reputable sites.  Signing up is simple and syncs with your Google account.  When you register, you can select the grade and subject you teach as well as linking some textbooks.  You also have the option to specify which standard you'd like your lesson to focus on.  You can choose from the Resource Library based on subject, grade, or standard, or you can create your own lesson.  You can also choose the type of lesson your student(s) will receive. Rosters are uploaded from Google Classroom, and lessons can be assigned to all students or a select few for differentiation and extra practice. Students are given immediate feedback on how they do, and if they miss any questions, they are provided with videos and extra resources to reteach the missed content.  Teachers can also see immediate results on student work. Watch this brief overview of this amazing site:

If you are looking for lesson ideas or supplements to your current content, try using the Microsoft Educator Community .  " Connect and collaborate, find training and lessons, and earn badges and certificates on this personalized hub created for  educators  like you."  While you can certainly use content from the site with your students, it's really a site for teachers. Signing in is simple and connects to your Microsoft365 account.  This is the login you use for all Microsoft software (Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, and Word).  The username would be your network ID (ex. ihhuggin@smsd.org or 800001234@smsd.org for newer staff) and network password. To search for ideas, you can search by type, grade, subject, etc.   If you are interested in using Skype in your classroom, you can search by availability for guest speakers or look through their themed activities and calendar of events.  See this previous blog post for more on Skype/video conferencing in the classroom.

Last week, I posted about Readsy : a site where you can read text by isolating one word at a time.  Today's post is about a similar site called Spritz. " When you’re spritzing, you’re reading text one word at a time in our “redicle,” a special visual frame we designed for reading."  Using Spritz or Readsy to read helps readers to better focus their attention.  Instead of being exposed to large amounts of text, readers are instead given one word at a time.  What makes it so different? Using Spritz or Readsy allows you to read without eye movement.  Here's a link to even more science behind the concept. While Spritz and Readsy are very similar sites, Spritz allows you to add a bookmarklet to be able to Spritz from anywhere.  Bookmarklets are created with software that is stored in a bookmark that allows interaction with web browsers.  If students find Spritzing to be helpful, they can click the added bookmarklet and it will read any webpage to them.  There are some