IHMS Tech Tips

I know many of you are familiar with or have used Flipgrid in your classrooms. If you are not, please refer to this previous blog post to see what a cool tool it is for your students. The Flipgrid community has been buzzing lately with the newest way to use it...a Fliphunt! It's a great tool for formative assessments.  Students can work individually or in small groups to show their understanding of a concept or a procedure. I could see Fliphunts being especially useful at the beginning of the year to engage students and address things like textbook orientation, how to sign out of the classroom, how to fill out their planner, where to find information about your class (homework, what to do when you're absent, teacher contact info, etc.)  I'm going to start working on one for library orientation information to use next year. To create a Fliphunt: First sign in or create your Flipgrid account.   Then, create a task document in Google Docs around your...

Wonderopolis is a website created by the National Center for Families Learning.  It houses thousands and thousands of Wonders of the Day.  Every day, a new Wonder is posted. I could see this site being used for bell work or as an extension activity: Have students find a Wonder of the Day based on your lesson/topic for the week. When students select the Wonder of the Day or use the search function to find Wonders based on their keywords and curiosity, they are taken to a full page of learning on that topic.  Students can read the text or have it read to them.  There is a list of Wonder Words that delves into the vocabulary from that article.  Once students have hovered over a Wonder Word and read the text, they can take a Wonder Word Challenge.  There is a separate challenge to set their comprehension of the article.  There are follow up questions, activities, and suggested Wonders of the Day that are related.  Students can also comme...