Most teachers are always looking for new ways to get their students interested in reading. One of our favorite reading activities is a “Read to the Top” contest. In these contests, much like in some local library summer reading programs, students compete to read the most books.

There are several resources that can help you plan a similar activity. A lot of libraries have Pinterest boards set up with book ideas (some are left over from summer reading programs – but hey, don’t we all wish it were summertime all year round?). Another great Pinterest board has links to all kinds of library-based activities to complete with your students, but my favorite is this awesome March Madness-esque bracket, where students read each book, then vote on the winner. Why not start a blog where students have to post their rationales for choosing the winner based on some good, old-fashioned CCSS criteria like an analysis of the author’s craft and structure?

Not interested in tracking the number of books your students read, but rather the actual time they spend reading? You may have heard of a service called MyON, which provides students with thousands of eBooks (they can read on or offline). The system allows teachers to assign specific books, but it will also just recommend books to students based on Lexile level (derived from a diagnostic test students take when they start using it). Then, the system tracks how many minutes each student spends reading.

You could pull up the dashboard for your class each day on the interactive whiteboard and spend a moment tracking who is in the lead. You’ll see those times start to soar as the finish line looms.

What is your favorite activity to encourage your students to read? Post about it below in the comments!

Is your administration pushing the use of exit tickets at your school? Even if they’re not, it’s something to consider. Running formative assessment during class requires preparation, management, and participation. But as with most things, having an easy daily routine can be a good way to work through some of those issues.

1. Find a web-based assessment resource that will export the data from your students’ answers into an Excel chart or some other useful format. Daily formative assessment is likely to fail if you are still the one stuck grading 30+ individual answers. If you’re in a 1:1 classroom, or if you have access to the computer lab, I’d recommend Kahoot. The great thing about this resource is that it somehow manages to be engaging and fun for every grade level. And it really is fun—try it with your colleagues at your next staff meeting and watch a room full of adults light up.
2. You can also use Socrative to issue short quizzes. This service also allows you to export data. Socrative takes just a few more minutes to set up than Kahoot does, but it offers a wider range of answering options (i.e. more than just multiple choice). Socrative even has templates and sample exit ticket questions already available for you to use.
3. If you have clickers (student response devices), you can plug a few questions into the clicker software each day and have your students follow the normal classroom procedures for using the clickers to answer. That data is stored in an exportable format too.
4. If you’re in a low-tech classroom, you can still have quizzes that are auto-graded. For instance, Mastery Connect—those guys who make the super-useful Common Core app—have a resource called the Bubble Sheet Scanner. Your students fill out a paper multiple-choice answer sheet. Then you hold their completed papers up to your computer’s camera, scan the papers, or download a free app for your iPad, and the software will automatically grade each quiz. Then all the data is still exportable to your grade book.

Give exit tickets a try to figure out where your students understand the curriculum and where they may be falling behind. It will help you intervene and remediate before it’s too late.

Thousands of classrooms across the country now have interactive whiteboards (IWBs) at the front of the room. Many teachers use these boards the same way they once used a pull-down screen and an overhead projector: to show transparencies and presentations. But the IWB can be so much more than that. Without much change in your classroom routine, you can use the IWB as a valuable tool for classroom management.

Controlling the IWB from the back of the room

It’s difficult to manage a classroom when your back is to your students. With a traditional chalkboard or whiteboard, you had no choice but to turn your back to the class while you wrote.

With an interactive whiteboard, there are apps that allow you to control your IWB from anywhere in the classroom. The champion in this area is Doceri. Doceri allows you to control your computer using an iPad. Hook your computer up to the IWB and control it remotely as you walk around the class.

In addition to simple controls, Doceri allows you to annotate over content on your computer. For example, if you want to model close reading of a website, you can underline, make notes, and highlight as needed. If you really want to write a lot on your iPad, it’s probably a good idea to invest in a stylus.

Use ClassDojo on the IWB

ClassDojo works great on the IWB. Project your class on the board and provide real time feedback on class behavior. It’s an easy way to run ClassDojo with only one computer and the IWB. And giving away points keeps individual students and small groups on task! Just make sure you have rewards ready (5-minute dance party, anyone?) for students who reach your benchmarks.

Using the IWB for small group time

The IWB isn’t reserved for whole class activities or presentations. If you have small groups of students rotating through activity stations around the room, try having one station be the IWB. You can create a self-paced activity in ActivInspire, have students annotate a text or fill in a graphic organizer, or work together to play a game or complete an online activity. Check out sites like PBS Kids, BrainPOP, or game directories to see what’s available. There’s probably something already created for your lesson.

How do you use the IWB for classroom management? Leave a comment and let us know!

School is about to start up again! This is the opportune time to plan for the upcoming school year and think about the changes you might want to make in your classroom. Most tech-minded teachers already know about top education sites like Edudemic and Edutopia, but where else should you look on the web to find tips this summer? Here are some great blogs that will help as you plan for the fall.

Free Tech 4 Teachers: This excellent blog written by Richard Byrne covers all kinds of technology, from web-based tools to apps. Byrne updates regularly with reviews and descriptions of new tools.

The Innovative Educator: Public school educator Lisa Nielsen focuses her work on using everyday technology to inspire and motivate students. This blog will help you incorporate technology that students already use, such as cell phones and social media, into your classroom.

Cool Cat Teacher: Written by Vicki Davis, a full-time classroom teacher and IT Director of a small school in Georgia, this blog strives to help teachers use technology to innovate their teaching. Davis also hosts the Every Teacher Matters podcast, in which she interviews teachers about best practices for using technology in the classroom.

Teacher Tech: In this blog, self-described “technology missionary” Alice Keeler gives tutorials on how to do all sorts of technology-based tasks. Recent posts include instructions on how to use Tweetdeck to follow multiple hashtags at once and how to create and manage YouTube playlists.

Teacher Reboot Camp: Shelly Sanchez Terrell challenges teachers to transform their teaching. In addition to her 30 Goals Challenge, Terrell also runs a blog full of resources for teachers, including her “A to Z Guide of Technology and Trends,” a weekly webinar, and a series of “survival tips” for teachers.

Those are just five blogs to help you jumpstart your search. What other blogs do you use to inspire your teaching? Please comment below.

Gone are the days when you only had access to parents via one-way monthly newsletters or twice-a-year parent teacher conferences. Thanks to technology you can easily keep in touch with your students’ parents all year-round.

Here are some tips to get your communicating with parents in the digital world:

Keep a Class Blog

Rather than sending home a monthly or weekly newsletter to parents that might never make it out of the bottom of your students’ backpacks, try starting a class blog. Set a schedule for posting and share that schedule with parents. Allow moderated comments on the posts to get parents involved with the classroom.

Have your students do most of the blogging. Assign one student a week to be the class chronicler. Have that student take photos, record interviews with other students, and summarize what the class learned. Weebly is an easy platform for students of all ages to use.

Get your class blog linked to your school’s homepage to show all the exciting work your class is doing!

Use a Messaging Service

Sending individual texts or emails to parents is time consuming and not very private. Let a messaging service, such as ClassDojo Messaging, do all the work for you. Once students and parents opt into the system, it allows you to easily send text message blasts to update all parents at once, or you can privately message them to keep them up-to-date on their child’s progress. You don’t see their phone numbers and they don’t see yours. This is a great option for families who may not have home Internet but do have smartphones.

Set Up a Class Social Media Account

If parents don’t want to have their phones buzzing all the time, consider starting a class Twitter account or Facebook page. You can use the page to share updates, photos, and links to student work. If your students are under 13, be sure to set the account to private. To view the page, all parents will need to have Twitter or Facebook accounts (many of them probably already do). Before setting up any class social media accounts, review your school’s Privacy Policy and check with administrators.

Make Parents Feel Welcome

Let parents know that your classroom is a welcome space for them. Consider inviting parents to your classroom on days when students are giving presentations or sharing projects. Working parents can use Skype or Google Hangouts to visit virtually.

Are you wondering what you can do to improve your students’ reading test scores this year? Are you trying to supplement your lesson plans with Common Core-based resources? Maybe you’re trying to reduce or resolve the setbacks from summer?

Here are great online resources that will help your students in English Language Arts:

Subtext

This free app and web-based platform allows teachers to assign leveled readings that can be embedded with quizzes, writing prompts, polls, and comments. Subtext has many texts pre-loaded, but you can always search for and upload your own digital text (e.g. a free Google book). In addition to collecting students’ responses to the pre-embedded prompts and quizzes, the system allows students to make their own annotations to the texts. There’s also a speech-to-text feature that works really well for struggling readers and English learners.

Newsela

This free site provides current event news articles that are vetted and leveled (based on Lexile measures). You can assign the same reading to every student, but differentiate the lexile level based on your knowledge of individual ability. In other words, Jack might read the article at 780L while Jamal reads the same article at 1170L. Your students can then discuss the article as a group and you can be confident that everyone was equally capable of accessing the content. The best thing about Newsela is that it gives your students access to relevant and authentic non-fiction texts. It’s a great tool for bell-ringer activities.

ReadWriteThink

If you’re looking for new ELA lesson plans or interactive activities (for individual or whole group instruction), ReadWriteThink is a great place to start. This nonprofit is supported by the IRA and NCTE, so you know the reading pedagogy behind the resources will be sound. They also provide at-home resources, so if you’re trying to get parents more involved in students’ reading success, you can suggest they look here as well.

From a young age, students are taught what a good citizen looks like: obeying laws, helping others, staying informed. Unfortunately, many students (and adults!) think the Internet is a place to let that good citizenship fall apart. You only need to look at the rise of cyberbullying to see this phenomenon first-hand. It’s important for teachers to teach students to be good citizens wherever they go, be it in the physical or digital world.

Consider sharing these guidelines and thoughts about good digital citizenship with your students this coming school year:

Staying Safe

• Never use your full name or give away any personal details online.

• Speak to an adult if any interaction online seems strange or makes you uncomfortable. Remember that it’s easy for someone to use a fake name or pose as someone else online.

Interacting with Others

• Be respectful in online discussions. Allow others the chance to speak and reply to your ideas. Respond thoughtfully to diverse opinions.

• Practice the 5-minute rule. If anything online makes you upset or angry, wait 5 minutes after typing a response before hitting send. Take that time to really think if that response is respectful.

• Before sending a message online or through a text message, ask yourself if you would say that message to a person’s face. If not, think about why you wouldn’t. Maybe the message shouldn’t be sent.

• Use Standard English and grammar in all interactions online.

Presenting Yourself

• Credit the source of all information, photos, and videos you use if you did not create them yourself. Using someone else’s work without giving credit is plagiarism and a form of stealing.

• Understand that nothing on the Internet ever really disappears. Your digital footprint will follow you to college, the workplace, and beyond. Be aware of the image you create.

Would love to hear what other suggestions you have to promote digital citizenship — please share in the comments below!

Before the school-year begins, you need to establish clear guidelines for technology in your classroom. Whether your school is 1:1 iPads, shared laptop carts, or computer labs, students need to know what is expected of them when they power up technology tools.

8 rules for technology in the classroom:

1. “Apples Up!”: When teacher is talking, iPads must be face down on students’ desks.

2. Use two hands to carry iPads or laptops. “Hug it like you love it!”: Great for younger students. Reminds students to hold the device to their chest. “Both thumbs on top!”: Good for older students. Students should stack books or papers beneath the device, then carry everything together.

3. Never carry devices by a cover or lid.

4. No food or drinks near devices. No devices in the lunchroom!

5. Always use the app or website the teacher directed. No unauthorized apps or chatting.

6. Wash hands before using any shared devices. We all know how easy it is for germs to spread like wildfire in a classroom!

7. When technology time is up, save and power off quickly. Do not take iPad or laptop out of bag/desk/cart unless directed by teacher.

8. As a teacher, it also helps to set some guidelines for yourself when integrating technology into your lesson plans!

5 rules for technology in the classroom — for teachers:

1. Make sure the technology adds real value.

2. Set clear expectations and guidelines for students. Make sure they know the technology has real educational value and is more than a fun tool or distraction.

3. Before any student work appears online, get administration and parental permission. No last names or location information!

4. Test all apps and websites before having students use them. If there are bugs you’ll want to know what they are and how to fix them before class starts.

5. Be open to student choice. Technology allows students to create animations, record podcasts, or make infographics all from the same device. Give students the freedom to explore outcomes that interest them.

Once you’ve established these guidelines, you and your students can start to enjoy the many benefits of technology in the classroom!

Welcome to your new classroom! Here is your Chromebook, your cart of iPads, your interactive whiteboard, and a copy of the digital literacy expectations for our students… Good luck!

If you’re a new teacher, you’ve probably heard these words recently. You may have found yourself wondering how to use the devices so generously bestowed upon your class — so, we’ve listed a few tips to keep you from getting overwhelmed.

1. Make friends with the tech integration specialist at your school.

This person will be able to help you work through the technical difficulties of plugging in your devices and learning simple troubleshooting techniques.

2. On the first day of school, identify a student tech whiz.

Chances are your students had a similar technology setup in their classrooms last year and more than a few of them are probably well versed in troubleshooting and setup. Give them a chance to shine. You may have so many interested tech gurus that you have to set up a rotation.

3. Find your favorite how-to blogs or Pinterest pages.

You are NOT the first teacher to have these problems. If you’re not comfortable asking someone in your school for help, ask someone on the Internet instead! Pinterest pages like this one are especially helpful for ideas using iPads in class and finding digital resources and activities.

4. Go slowly; there’s no need to jump into each device in the first week of school.

Before school starts, set up your class rules for handling the technology and review with them your school’s Acceptable Use Policy, like this one from South Berwyn District 100. You’ll likely have to send home permission slips so your students are allowed to work online. If you share a cart of devices with another class, figure out what the rotation schedule will be. There’s a lot of administrative work to getting your digital classroom up and running — but that gives you some extra time to get used to the tools.

Once you get comfortable you’ll find that using tech can save you time and energy and that your students will develop greater interest in the subject matter. Just take it one step at a time and remember you’re not alone!