Class discussions are one of the better ways to help students develop the valuable skills of creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. Discussions enable students to ask probing questions of each other, listen to and respond to classmates clearly and appropriately, challenge ideas and expand upon observations, and view topics with a circumspect lens. The benefits of class discussions are numerous; however, there are some obstacles to productive discussions.
One is time. By their nature, class discussions can take a while to develop. Oftentimes, the most interesting parts of a discussion are discovered long into the examination of a subject. A related obstacle is equal time for all students. Some students speak a lot, and some speak a little, and some might not even get the opportunity to speak. Also, some students may just be reluctant to speak in front of their peers.
Digital or online discussion boards have been used to mitigate these obstacles, but they can often lose focus the longer they go on and the further they become removed from the discussion topic. Discussion or message boards make it difficult to retain the context of the conversation at hand simply by the user-interface of the board itself. This brings me to an excellent solution: NowComment.
NowComment is a free (yes, free) web app that allows for dynamic and engaging discussions of online documents, articles, videos, and more. What sets this educational tool apart from the others are its unique user-interface and features.
NowComment uses a brilliant two-pane user-interface that contains the article or video on the left side of the screen and the discussion of it on the right side. The article or video can be marked with annotations that link to specific discussions and comments about that particular sentence, paragraph, or section. NowComment keeps everyone on literally the same page, and the discussions become more relevant and engaging. Here are two short videos that demonstrate NowComment's awesome features.
Google Sheets is a powerful tool in the G Suite line-up, but
it’s not all formulas, pivot tables, and data.
Google Sheets can become a fun, interactive learning opportunity with the
help of the Flippity add-on. With Flippity,
you can quickly and easily turn a Google Sheet into an engaging learning
activity for almost any content area.
The first thing you will have to do is install the Flippity
add-on for Google Sheets. You can get
the add-on by clicking here. Once you
have that, you can begin creating Sheets and turning them into fun activities
to use with your students. Flippity offers
15 different games, tools, and activities to use. For each one, Flippity provides a demo
version, instructions, and a template, so you don’t have to do much of the work
on your own besides plugging in your own content to customize each template.
Flippity is a great tool to bring some fun, engagement, and
interactivity to any learning activity for any content area. Plus, it is easy to use and (the most
important part) free. To learn more
about Flippity, please click here.
There is one skill that is absolutely valuable no matter the
future goals and careers of our students.
That skill is the ability to be an effective reader, writer, and
communicator. Communication skills
routinely top the list of attributes that employers seek in candidates. While students are still in K-12, having
sharp reading and writing skills will help them across all content areas. And maybe, just maybe, those skills will help
them to enjoy reading a good book for fun.
Teaching reading and writing is a daunting task given the
complexities of language and the diversity of students. Tack grammar onto that, and it gets even more
arduous. By their nature, these are difficult
and time-consuming skills to teach. Here
comes technology to the rescue!
Quill is a powerful, but easy-to-use online program that teaches
ELA skills in a personalized, adaptive, and real-world system. Once teachers create their classes on Quill,
they can assign units, lessons, and activities from ready-made materials that
are CCSS-aligned by grade. Teachers also
can see the names and numbers of the standards to narrow down what they want to
use. If teachers already use Google
Classroom, then they can create their Quill classes with only a couple clicks
as Google Classroom is fully integrated in Quill.
Then, teachers can give diagnostics to their students to see
which standards each student needs to address to become proficient. Quill will then automatically create individualized,
“just right” lessons and activities for the students to address weaknesses, but
teachers can also assign materials themselves.
Besides creating their classes on Quill, teachers do not have to create
anything else. Instead of creating and
correcting assignments, teachers can use their time to better understand their
students' ELA skills and simply assign them the lessons they need.
The lessons and activities on Quill are adaptive, adjusting
themselves in real-time to the answers of the students to provide personalized
exercises. Students also get immediate
feedback, help, and multiple tries when doing activities. Additionally, students can re-take lessons as
many times as they want.
Teachers get detailed reports with in-depth information on
their students’ performance on specific ELA skills and standards, showing their
proficiency percentage on each one.
Teachers also see which lessons and activities their students completed
and when.
I saved the best thing about Quill for last. Quill teaches ELA skills they way they are
supposed to be taught: within the
context of real literature and writing.
Quill does not teach these skills in an isolated, fill-in-the-blank,
multiple-choice form. Students work with
real written passages in order to gain an understanding of how language
actually works and how context, word choice, and sentence structure affect the
overall outcome. For example, if
students are working on subject-verb agreement, they not only have to correct
errors, but they also have to re-write the incorrect sentence and make sure
they use correct spelling and punctuation in the re-written sentence. Other exercises like figuring out how to best combine many ideas into one cohesive sentence or re-wording sentences for clarity are what set Quill apart and make it a comprehensive and effective learning tool. Quill provides an authentic, real-world, and personalized
way for students to learn ELA skills, and it makes it quick and easy for
teachers to use.
Quill provides five unique tools to teach ELA:
1. Quill Diagnostic – "Quickly determine which skills your students need to work on. The diagnostic covers vital sentence construction skills and generates a personalized learning plan based on the student's performance."
2. Quill Lessons – "Enables teachers to lead whole-class and small group writing instruction. Teachers control interactive slides that contain writing prompts, and the entire class responds to each prompt. Each activity provides a lesson plan, writing prompts, discussion topics, and a follow-up independent practice activity."
3. Quill Grammar – "Over 150 sentence writing activities to help your students practice basic grammar skills from comma placement to parallel structure. Activities are designed to be completed in 10 minutes, so you have the freedom to use them in the way that works best for your classroom."
4. Quill Connect – "Using the evidence-based strategy of sentence combining, students combine multiple ideas into a single sentence. They then receive instant feedback designed to help them improve the clarity and precision of their sentences."
5. Quill Proofreader – "Teaches students editing skills by having them proofread passages. Students edit passages and receive personalized exercises based on their results. With over 100 expository passages, Proofreader gives students the practice they need to spot common grammatical errors."
There is a free version that is comprehensive by itself. The paid versions offer more features and are
very affordable. Below is pricing information and a video about Quill.
