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Technology Timesavers for Teachers

by Jill Scott on March 29, 2012

Teachers today are fortunate to have access to technological tools that make our jobs easier and minimize the paperwork involved in educating our students. I didn’t grow up with computers like today’s students did, but I’m very much on board with becoming more tech savvy and, yes, even accepting help from my students when I have technical difficulties.

About a year ago I bought myself an iPad after saving for it for months. It was going to help me organize my life, both at home and at school, and guess what? It did. I love my iPad and I can’t see myself living without it. Today I want to share with you some of my favorite apps and websites that I use in the classroom.

The first tool I use is DropBox and you don’t have to have an iPad to use it. It’s the icon with the red arrow pointing to it. It’s a free app that I have downloaded on my PC at school, my Mac and my laptop at home, my iPhone, and my iPad. The fact that I’m using it on windows driven computers and Macs interchangeably doesn’t matter one little bit.

DropBox is a way to store your documents “in the cloud” so that you have access to them wherever you are. You can even access your documents from any computer that has an internet connection, regardless of whether the app is loaded on the computer you’re using or not.

I cannot tell you how liberating it was for me to kick my jump drive to the curb. I can start my lesson plans on my computer at school, and when I turn on my computer at home, DropBox automatically updates any changed files. I work on my lesson plans at home as well as at school, and I can go back and forth like that as much as I want. With DropBox I’m always working on the most up-to-date copy without having to remember which computer has the most current file.

I also don’t have the problem of having some files on my computer at home and some on my computer at school. I have everything I need, no matter where I’m at.

That makes this control freak happy, let me tell you.

The other website and free app I use is Dictionary.com. I love it not only because I can look words up super fast and appear smarter than I am, but check this out.

Do you see that little blue speaker up there in the upper right corner? That magical little button enables you to hear the correct pronunciation of the word.

Imagine!

Is it me, or are there some words that no matter how many times you look them up, you still cannot remember how to properly pronounce them? Like scythe. That one slays me every time. I think I finally have scourge down. Probably because it is so fun to say.

The nifty thing is that students love to learn when they can use fun tools like this. Whenever I struggle with a word or how to define a word, they are quick to encourage me to look it up on the computer. In fact, they want to do it for me. They’re young and limber and very comfortable with technology, so why the heck not? Educate me, Little People.

One app I use is Teacher Assistant. I’ve only been using this one for a couple of months, but so far I love it. I use it to collect data about behavior, good and bad. I’ve tried many different ways to collect behavioral data and all of them were cumbersome and did not work for me long-term. This app is working for me, so Yay!

I got this screen shot from the Teacher Assistant website, so don’t worry, it isn’t one of my students. I wanted to show you an example without infringing on my students’ privacy. That, and I was too lazy to make a bogus student and their accompanying entries.

The next app I’ve been using for a while is called Stick Pick and it enables me to call on students randomly.

I can have multiple classes and groupings, so this app would work great for secondary teachers as well as elementary teachers.

This is what the sticks look like when I’m using them to call on students. I just touch the large can and it makes a shuffling noise before this next screen comes up.

I can choose to reset the stick if I want. I reset the sticks when I don’t want the students to get complacent thinking they’ve already been called and they can relax without worrying about being called on again. I can also mark the sticks as used, and that enables me to make sure everyone gets a turn. The beauty of this app is that the students never know whether I’m resetting the sticks or not, and they never question whether or not the selection is fair because I’m not the one calling on them, the robot that lives in my iPad is. They trust technology and that’s a beautiful thing.

This next app, Smart Seat, is a new app for me and I loooooooooove it. It makes changing seats a breeze. Before I found this app, I tried another app that didn’t work out so great. It was called Seat Charter and it stank, so I want you to stay far away from it. Please make sure you don’t waste your money on it. It had nice graphics, but I couldn’t control the graphics or group the students’ names with their desks. It was seriously more trouble than it was worth so I deleted it off my iPad in a fit of rage. And it wasn’t free. I’m still mad about it.

Smart Seat doesn’t have cool graphics but it works, and that’s what’s important anyway, isn’t it? What I like most about it is that I can make seating charts and tweak them on the fly. For example, the last time we moved seats I noticed that I had made a bad choice, so I just put my finger on the student’s name that I had to move, and I moved him. It was that easy. This screen shot shows me doing just that. While the desk is in transit, it’s yellow and larger. When I plop it into place it will look like all the others.

Skippy John Jones was naughty so I moved him to Alaska. The rest of the class is in the contiguous United States and Alaska is not, so that’s what we call the desk that is separated from the rest of the class.

I can also e-mail my seating charts to myself in pdf form so I can print them out for a sub. I love that.

The last app I want to share with you is more of a preview of what’s to come. With the Common Core Standards coming into play, I think we’re going to be seeing more apps and more flexibility within the apps. I have this app, CommonCore, because it was free and less cumbersome than flipping through my district provided standards that are printed on legal-sized paper in a 3-point font. You know how helpful that is, don’t you?.

This app has Math and Language Arts standards for all grades, but it is much easier to read than the spreadsheets that are posted online or that our districts print out for us.

This screen shot shows the 6th grade math standard 6.NS.1.

This particular app doesn’t allow you to make notes, it is just the standards.

I envision having access to an app that would allow me to make notes on each of the standards with regards to curriculum and resources I use and can use to teach each standard. How cool to have all of that information in one place and be able to access it anywhere. It blows my mind.

I hope you have the opportunity to use some of these technology time savers that I use in my classroom.

- Jill Scott, Controlling My Chaos

What about you? What do you use and love that you couldn’t live without? I’d love to try something new.

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Why Character Education?

by Laura Parker on November 11, 2011

Why should a teacher spend valuable class time on character education when students aren’t held responsible for things like kindness, respect, or integrity on those ever-pressing end of year state tests?

I get it. I do. A teacher is overwhelmed with pressure to barrel through curriculum and oftentimes it leaves little room for intentional instruction on the unseen and un-tested character of the students. Below I make a case for why character education warrants some space in every teacher’s classroom, anyway:

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds. – george eliot

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking. – h. jackson brown, jr.

Why Every Teacher Should Teach Character

1. Kids Might Not Be Getting It at Home. Despite the idea that teaching character is really the parent’s job, to be played out in the confines of the home, the reality is that many children do not have parents that are intentionally challenging them to live lives of kindness and integrity. With work schedules and after school activities, sometimes the time spent with a teacher is longer during the weekdays than the time spent with a parent, anyway, and so the importance of using those hours to teach things that really matter increases.

To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.  - theodore roosevelt

It takes a whole village to raise a child. – ashanti proverb

2. Character Education Builds Relationships. When students have the space to engage with each other and with a teacher about things of real life beyond math facts and grammar rules, relationships are built within the classroom. Students hear each other’s stories, think about their lives, challenge the status quo, and grow more connected to the others in the learning environment. This not only has benefits socially and personally for students, but it also increases the effectiveness of classroom management.

3. Character Education Creates Positive School Environments. When classrooms are intentionally engaged in discussions and activities about a person’s character, the entire school begins to have a more positive atmosphere. Students feel more connected with each other, and teacher-student relationships are strengthened. Character education allows teachers to share life experience, rather than only book experience.

Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character. – albert einstein

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike. – teddy roosevelt

4. Character Education is Easy. Character education doesn’t mean hours of research of lesson plans. It can be as simple as 5 minutes at the beginning of class to discuss a meaningful quote or a half an hour on Fridays to share an inspirational video. Rest assured, it could easily become the highlight of your teaching week, without a great amount of effort from you to plan. {See the bottom of this post for some valuable free resources and lesson plans.}

5. Teaching Character Can Change the World. The students in your classroom will be the adults who shape our society in future years. And while it is important that they graduate intellectually educated, the value of your students becoming citizens who interact in the world with kindness, respect, integrity, and moral behavior is perhaps even more important.

In challenging and inspiring students to be positive forces in their society, you as a teacher are changing the course of the next generation. And that’s worth a few minutes of instructional time, in the very least.

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A Great Resource for Character Education:  Character Counts.com.  This site has a host of ideas, free lesson plans, and targeted quotes on six main attributes of character. Character Counts is the largest character education curriculum in the nation, and it’s site offers trainings and curriculum, but it also has loads of freebies, too.

Character Education Quotes: The Josephson Institute has a fantastic list of inspirational quotes, organized into character qualities.

Inspired Teacher: Inspired Teacher’s Character Education Ideas for Middle/High School Students, for Elementary Students, or with Videos that Teach.

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 *Laura is a former middle school teacher and current home educator to her three children in Thailand. She blogs at aLifeOverseas.com.

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Top Ten Classroom Management Ideas and Resources

by Laura Parker on October 18, 2011

Classroom Management. Whether you are looking to control a rowdy class, capture the heart of a disrespectful student, or encourage kids to turn in their homework on time, effective classroom management is an ever-moving target. Class personalities, student ages, season of the year, the presence of that one student {yes, you know the one}, can sometimes have even experienced teachers searching for new ideas. If that happens to be you, I hope the following list of resources and ideas will be helpful. I’ve spent quite a bit of time researching, and these are some of the best ideas I’ve seen on the web.  You know, for those few moments when your class doesn’t look quite like this:

{Some of} The Best Classroom Management Resources and Ideas

1. Laura Candler’s Classroom Management Strategies Resource Page. {If you click one link, go here for a quick overview of ideas and a gajillion free resources. Laura Candler has a host of practical ideas and resources for teachers of any level. Free printables, charts, tips, techniques. Really, you’ll learn something new.}

2. Behavior Plans and Charts. {Over at The Cornerstone for Teachers, this resource includes several practical ideas for instilling positive behavior in the whole class, as well as detailed instructions– including a how-to video– of how to create an individual behavior plan.}

3. World’s Easiest Token System. {Detailed instructions on how to create and maintain a token system for behavior that has literally won awards. Again, over at TheCornerStoneforTeachers.com. Excellent idea! You can also check out her suggestions for making class rules– another informative post.}

4. Classroom Management Ideas for Elementary Students. {This helpful list has about 30 simple, practical ideas for classroom management for students ages 5 to 11.}

5.50 Behavior Management Strategies, Relationally-Speaking. {This compilation of 50 ideas was compiled by a group of teachers and can be used for students of all ages, particularly middle and high school students. Many of the ideas focus on practical ways to build relationships with the kids in your classroom.}

6. Classroom Management Ideas for Young Children. {Another list of simple behavior management ideas for elementary students.}

7. Getting Class Control, Elementary Aged. {Seven simple ideas to control talking and get the group’s attention. Ideas include using a “talk thing,” “do the wave,” and “high-fives.” Super practical and effective with the preschoolers I’ve helped teach!}

8.  How to Keep Kids Busy When They Finish Work Early. {If you haven’t already spent time at TeachingBlogAddict, then you really must. This practical idea for occupying students during class time was first posted by Hadar at the adorable blog Miss Kindergarten. It’s called the “I’m Done Jar.” Awesome idea you could tweak for any age!}

9.  True Story of a Troubled Kid Turned Model Student. {This is an encouraging story about a high school student who was disturbing her classroom daily, including name-calling and knocking over desks. See how this teacher practically turned Trouble into Success through fostering a RELATIONSHIP with the young man.}

10. A Simple Way to Get Parents Involved in a Positive Behavior Plan. {Kathy over at the blog First Grade a la carte, posted a great idea of asking parents to sign up in the beginning of the year to bring in weekly prizes for those students who had good behavior and completed homework. This particular system works best for elementary students, but the idea of having parents provide the classroom rewards works for any age — and gets you out of spending money at The Dollar Store!}

If you need to peruse free and inexpensive printable resources and e-books, you can always search the teacher-created products over at the site TeachersPayTeachers– always an excellent resource. You can specifically find their listings under Classroom Management here.

* photo credit

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