Teachers Pay Teachers

I’ve used Teachers Pay Teachers throughout my career in education. It’s a fairly self-explanatory resource, but it provides a platform for educators to share the work they’ve created in the classroom, whether it’s a how-to for an instructional technology tool or a lesson planning template, with other educators for free or for a small fee. I’ve decided to start adding some free and for-pay resources of my own creation. Here’s my online store:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Jonathan-Almon

Teaching Channel

I was trying to find a website housing teacher professional development video. I stumbled upon Teaching Channel. It has tons of videos of teachers working with students in their classrooms. The videos can be discovered by subject, grade, or content. I found "Content" to be the most helpful. Users can find videos about classroom management, collaboration, differentiation, engagement, etc. Teaching Channel is a fantastic resource.

Creating Great Teachers

Here's an interesting article from EdSurge: Five Ways to Create Rockstar Teachers. It concentrates heavily on professional development for teachers and how to incorporate choice, personalized learning, and teacher leaders within the professional learning community. Also, school leaders need to lead by example and commit to the life-long learning process.

Math Growth Mindset

Amazon recently released a program called With Math I Can. It gives students stories of other students persevering through difficult math concepts. Teachers can use videos to learn more about growth mindset, establishing a culture of grit in the classroom, and how to personalize learning for all students. Parents can use the videos to reinforce the growth mindset at home. I'm excited to see where Amazon goes with this program!

Minecraft in the Classroom

Do your students love Minecraft? Do you have students begging you to use Minecraft? Graphite released a blog post on how to get started with Minecraft in the classroom. It provides a teacher ways to setup Minecraft for the classroom, lessons to try, and ways to check student work. It's a great resource for any teacher willing to try Minecraft but isn't sure where to start.

Checks for Understanding

I've recently been searching for resources on how to improve my "checks for understanding" with students. I stumbled upon an article (actually an excerpt from a book) from ASCD where a chapter was dedicated to Checks for Understanding. The chapter describes the process of checking for understanding:

1) "Feed-up" -- clarify the purpose, learning goals
2) "Feedback" -- respond to student work
3) "Feed-forward" -- modify your instruction where needed

Also, I found a great collection of ways to Check for Understanding from Edutopia.

Differentiation Podcast

Here's a podcast I recently listened to (mostly, it's a little long): http://inservice.ascd.org/differentiated-instruction-works-how-and-why-to-do-di/
Key points: You need the right environment (growth mindset, supports, access, etc.), quality curriculum (clear learning goals), and formative assessments to establish a starting point to differentiate your lessons.

Student Engagement

In this article from Edutopia, The 8 Minutes That Matter Most, it outlines the importance of the first four minutes and the last four minutes for student engagement. It also gives a few good ideas to begin class, end class, and most importantly, to keep it engaging.

Educational Social Networks

Here's a list of some of the best social networking sites for teachers and students according to Graphite. They have sites for students to share their work/ideas, sites for educators to connect with other educators, and site for teachers and students to work in a virtual classroom. Check out this great resource!

Winter Conference

Here's an upcoming STEAM and tech integration conference:

2016 Winter Conference

 It's an online conference and $99 for 10 hours of PD.

Google Drive search

I've heard numerous complaints about losing files in Google Drive, and I've even had difficulty finding files shared with me through my Drive. Google has heard your complaints and added updates to the way users can search for files within their Drive. Here's Google's blog post about the update, but basically, they've added an easier advanced search option and allow users to search for file types.

Common Craft

I stumbled upon CommonCraft browsing through my Twitter Feed. They house educational videos for teachers to use. Their mission: "We want to make the world a more understandable place to live and work by helping professionals like you become better explainers.  More explainers means better explanations - and that’s a good thing." Seems like a great resource!

Best Educational Podcasts

According to Edutopia, here are some of the 7 Best Educational Podcasts. They have their podcasts listed according to teaching strategies, PLN's, educational technology, professional development, and leadership. I've heard great things about Moving at the Speed of Creativity.

Apps for Kids

I stumbled across this interesting blog: Best Apps for Kids. The site is written and managed by a group of mothers. Users can search for apps by age group, subject, platform (iOS, Android, etc.), or by bestseller lists. Seems like a great resource for teachers and parents!

Educational Conferences

I found this excellent resource on the Teach Thought blog: Best Educational Conferences 2016. Teachers upload a link to their favorite conferences for the upcoming year. See if there's one you can add or one you would like to attend. Keep learning!

Web Tools for Teachers

Educational Tech and Mobile Learning released a blog post about 7 new tools teachers should be using:

Exampl allows you to take a picture of your math problem that has you stumped, upload to their website, and receive help from your peers. I'm really excited to pass this along to our Math Dept.

Field Trip Zoom allows teachers to connect with institutions in their area who provide learning opportunities for students. The examples the site provides are zoos or museums, but there are many more opportunities to explore.

BirdBrain is an online science textbook which are aligned to the Common Core. It's a great supplement for any science teacher.

Check out the other four tools at Educational Tech and Mobile Learning!

EdTech Teacher

Next weekend (Nov 14-16), the MASS Fall Conference will be held at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. They've released many of the programs being presented during the conference, and EdTech Teacher released links to their presentations on the EdTech Teacher website. Follow the links next to the presenter's name to view their presentations. This is an excellent FREE resource with some interesting ideas about the future of education.

Professional Development

Here's an interesting site: Bloom Board. It allows teachers and administrators to create a personal path for their professional development. The user enters information about the areas they'd like to know more about, like differentiation, personalized learning, inquiry-based teaching, etc. It's a great way for teachers to take control of their professional development. I created a free account today!

Google Docs

Struggling with Google Documents? Here's a Google Certified teacher's Google Docs Tutorial Page. It's pretty much your one-stop-shop for all Google Docs questions. Great resource!

Screencasts

I make a ton of screencast videos using Snagit and my HUE document camera, but Free Tech 4 Teachers recently released a blog post about FREE ways to screencast using any device. The post includes ways to record your screen using a Mac, a Windows machine, an iPad, Android, Chromebooks, or even browser based recording. A fantastic resource for any teacher!