Passionate EdTech Educator

Padlet is an online virtual bulletin board, where students and teachers can collaborate, reflect, share links and pictures, in a secure location. It's a great educational tool that you can use as a questions board where  students can access a "questions" board 24/7 and anonymously post questions. You can then read off and answer the questions each day. You can also use it when you want to summarize a large amount of information and present it in a visually pleasing way.  There are several ways where you can use Padlet to enrich your classroom experience and make it more interesting for students. Below is the tutorial that I've created in the "Introduction to Educational Technology" course that I took last semester in the Educational Technology masters curriculum.

WordArt is an online word cloud art creator that enables you to create amazing and unique word cloud art with ease. Professional quality results can be achieved in no time at all, even for users with no prior knowledge of graphic design. You can be use it as a means of assessment in your classroom. Below is an example of how one of my grade 6 students demonstrated what she knows about Microsoft Word by the end of the session. My students loved it and they were fascinated by the idea of customizing their word cloud the way they want.

Heyyy 😃 Today I'll let you know about my favorite coding websites that I've been using with my elementary classes- grade 3->6. Honestly speaking kids loved spending their time on these websites. Whenever they are done working with their activity they immediately open to one of these websites and start playing, it makes them enthusiastic and happy. They love getting challenges and they start thinking about how they should solve and ask for help from their friends and i. They even told me that they are accessing these website in their home. I really encourage you to check them out and let your students access them in their free time. I bet you and your students would love them!!! CodeMonkey Code.org Kodable Tynker

  School ogy is a learning management system for students & teachers to access: Ø All of their electronic materials and activities that complement what happens in the classroom Ø  Quizzes, discussion boards, polls, and announcements Ø Calendar that helps in organizing assignments and other events Below is a tutorial on how you can use Schoology in your classroom as an effective tool to provide a collaborative learning experience. I'm eager to try it out next year with my students!! I created this tutorial as an assignment in "Distance Learning" course while studying my masters in Educational Technology. Feel free to leave any comment or question, I'll be glad to reply :)

Zoom In is a thinking routine.   As each section is revealed, students make new inferences. Students come to the realization that thinking is a process and minds can be changed based on new understandings.  How to use the strategy: 1. P ut an image or several ones and ask the students to look  closely and tell you what do they see, what do you think this is, and why do you think so? 2. Reveal more of the image and ask your students what are the new things that you see, have you changed your previous idea?    3. Repeat steps two & three until the whole image has been revealed.   I created this Zoom In activity for grade 6 students as a recall of what they've learned about Microsoft Excel last year. Students were so engaged and loved it, they kept on guessing and they were so happy when they guessed it right. I really think that using this thinking routine would make your session more interesting and engaging. Feel free to edit it according t...

Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process. Trello can be used as an effective visual collaboration tool that can help in organizing various teachers’/students’ tasks. I created this tutorial as an assignment in my "Introduction to Educational Technology" course during the first semester of my masters in Educational Technology. Hope that you find it resourceful and easy to use.   Trello Handout from Dana Al Rifai

ClassDojo  is a behavior management tool for the classroom. Each student has a profile to which teachers can assign positive and negative points (or 'dojos') throughout the lesson. The website can be operated by a teacher from their computer or tablet, and each time they award a point an (optional) sound plays to alert the class. I have been using Class Dojo for for three years and I absolutely adore it. In my classroom, I try to use Dojo to focus on positive behaviors instead of the negative ones. For example if a student isn't listening to my instructions or isn't working on his activity , I try to award the students around him for finishing their task on time. To keep Dojo relevant to my students, I offer them passport to sit down next to their friends, option to wear colorful clothes to school, give them certificates while acknowledging in them in front of all his friends...etc. I also have consequences for those who end up with more than five negative points in...