Tales of 3rd Grade Tech

  This week I looked at Holly Clark's blog   Infused Classroom   and her review of virtual backgrounds.    A few weeks ago we learned about green screen backgrounds in one of our tech tools. This week I thought I would look more into how I could incorporate that into my classroom. I found a blog that Holly Clark wrote on virtual backgrounds!  What are Virtual Backgrounds?  I am a remote teacher and will be for the remainder of the year. Thinking about virtual backgrounds was not something I was concerned with when trying to figure out online learning. However, now I feel comfortable looking for a new way to engage my students. Virtual backgrounds are a way for teachers to bring an interactive experience into their remote calls. Teachers can use virtual backgrounds on both Teams and Zoom calls. While these sites offer free virtual backgrounds, Clark suggests that teachers utilizing Canva and Adobe Spark to make virtual backgrounds specific and relevant...

  What is Newsela ?  Newsela is a free website that can help educators bring current events into the classroom. Through Newsela educators can find trusted and reliable content that relates to their students and directly aligns with state standards. In addition the site offers a variety of reading levels allowing access to all students. On Newsela there is a wide range of content, it offers articles relating to science, ELA, SEL and more! How does it work?  Teachers can sign up for a Newsela account and then they will receive a class code. When a student logs into Newsela with your class code they become apart of your class and you can begin assigning content to them. Teachers can either assign articles to students or students can explore the different articles independently. When a teacher assigns an article they also have the ability to have students take a quiz or write about what they read. Students have a binder section on their account and that is where they can go t...

  This week I looked at Holly Clark's blog   Infused Classroom   and her review of virtual backgrounds.    What are VR experiences?  If you are like me VR feels like a topic that only tech savvy teachers can integrate. However, in her blog Holly Clark gave suggestions for how to make it possible in your classroom! Clark states that, " Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that opens the door to the wider real world"(Clark, 2021).  Incorporating  this into your classroom can ignite  curiosity  in students and increase classroom  engagement . In addition it opens up  opportunities  to expose your students to  different  places, cultures and things. Clark,  also  helped me see that I don't need a ton of money to make a VR  experience  happen.  Below  a some steps you can take to integrate VR.  Get a class set or enough for a small group of cardboard . This is how you ...

What is  BrainPOP ?  BrainPOP is an educational platform that provides videos and resources to students. This site covers topics ranging from science and math to art and SEL. After students watch the videos they have different ways they can engage with the content. Students can take a quiz, create a video, find related readings and more. Teachers can choose to assign work or students can explore independently. While BrainPOP is not free teachers can buy a membership for their class without the district/school needing to provide a subscription. Additionally, families can purchase accounts for their students to use this tool at home.  How does it work?  Once you have a BrainPOP account you need to connect your students. BrainPOP is linked to Clever which is a single sign-on platform. If you do not use Clever, BrainPOP will give you a class code and your students can manually sign in and become apart fo your BrainPOP class. When all your students have joined your class ...

  This week I looked at Holly Clark's blog   Infused Classroom   and her review of Immersive Reader.  What is Immersive Reader?  Immersive Reader is a free Microsoft tool that was designed to help students with Dyslexia read. However, this has been such a hit in classrooms it can be beneficial for all students. Immersive readers supports users in readin g comprehen sion and fluency. With this tool all students can have access to understanding regardless of their abilities. Immersive reader is versatile and according to Clark can be used with resources such as, " Canvas, Flipgrid, Wakelet, Flocabulary, Pear Deck, Kidblog, Buncee, Nearpod, Merge, and Thinglink" (Clark, 2021). There are a lot of  possibilities  for integration. In her article Clark highlights five key benefits of immersive reading. This tool can read online content to students. Embedded in the tool is a picture dictionary where student can click on a word and a picture associated with the...