StoryMaker with 1st Grade @ Wilson

First Graders at Wilson School just wrapped up a unit study on Fairy Tales. The students are now working on creating their own Fairy Tales using My StoryMaker.  My StoryMaker was created by Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and named one of the Best Websites for Teaching and Learning by the American Association of School Librarians.

 

 

Getting started with Google Forms

Want to create a Google Form but not sure where to begin? View this quick tutorial created by Lee Webster.  When creating forms for students within our district Google account, remember elementary students cannot access email.  You will need to embed the link to the form on your class website or blog.

Some tips at the elementary level:

1. Make sure you do not check the box that requires a student to sign-in

2. Create a question on the form for students to enter his/her name and make sure that question is marked “required” so every entry has a name.

3. Don’t mark all questions “required” unless they are mandatory (or you know they will have time to finish the entire form). For example, if you have activities at the bottom that students may not get to leave the “required” box unchecked so students can submit the rest of the form without being prompted to finish first.

via Google Forms – Getting started – YouTube.

Digital Citizenship

You may have heard the term “Digital Citizenship” get thrown around a lot lately or maybe even noticed blog posts, newspaper articles and even emails from our district.  It’s a topic discussed often and as educators we need to understand why it’s so important to teach our students how to be a good citizen online while  simultaneously teaching them the skills to be a good citizen in the classroom.  All students even as young as Kindergarten should learn how to use technology appropriately. Digital Citizenship is more than just a teaching tool, it’s a way to prepare technology users and guide them to use the tools safely and properly.

Check out this blog for more information on digital citizenship and why kids need to be educated

Three Reasons Kids Need Digital Literacy and Citizenship Education

Common Sense Media is a great site for parents and educators. Common Sense Media is free to join and offers Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum for grades K-12.  The scope and sequence documents offer objectives, lesson plans, activities, videos and more!

How to teach Internet Safety in grades K-6

Continue your search here… Edcanvas | Digital Citizenship: Talking Safely Online.

Edcanvas

Looking for a new way to organize your lessons? Or a new way to execute a lesson? Try Edcanvas, a tool that lets you add videos, images, website snapshots and files to create a canvas for students to access.  Teachers can also create virtual classes so that students could create their own canvas.  This a great tool to create scavenger hunts and webquests!

Here are some YouTube videos to get you started…

Lesson Tracker

 

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