Students at UC Berkeley have begun a class action lawsuit against Google, claiming that they breached state and federal wiretap laws. What is especially concerning is that Google scans and stores data of anyone using its Apps for Education, whether or not that organization has turned ads off or not. Scanning and indexing an inbox does [...]
The Writing Exercises website includes various types of story idea generators that are appropriate for use with any grade level. Some of the generators include a first line generator, a random dialogue generator, or a three nouns generator. There's even a random image generator to get students started writing their stories. Website: http://writingexercises.co.uk/index.php Subject: Writing [...]
Learning Designer is a tool that helps you create lesson plans that incorporate many different learning experiences. You name your lesson, describe it, and write up some outcomes that you want your students to achieve through the lesson. Once you have the general framework, you can begin adding TLAs (Teaching and Learning Activities). Each TLA [...]
Math Playground is a website that has several games for various ages that allow students to practice math and logical thinking skills. Topics covered include addition, subtraction,multiplication, division, pre-algebra, fractions, decimals, geometry, and percents and ratios. The website also includes several online math tools such as fraction blocks, pegboards, chart generators, and a bank of [...]
I've been researching grant opportunities for ePortal so it was exciting to hear about K12's new foundation--The Foundation for Blended and Online Learning. K12 is a provider of online K-12 education and they have recently started a new foundation to "empower students through personalized learning by advancing the availability and quality of blended and online [...]
Today's tool is designed to help students better navigate the often complicated and ambiguous online world. A choose-your-own-adventure style game lets students select characters who go through various online related scenarios ranging from plagiarism to cyberbullying to the disparity between online and offline personalities. Each storyline takes about five to ten minutes and includes a [...]
The next greatest improvement to the ePortal system involves apps. Right now, the ePortal development team is testing apps before deployment to individual school systems, but in a few months, we will turn that responsibility over to you, allowing you to choose your own apps and implement them in your own system. Apps on ePortal [...]
Today's tool is more of a content framing device than a subject matter tool. Nearpod allows you to create and share presentations with students, but unlike other presentation programs, the teacher is in control of the pacing of the presentation. While students have access to the presentation on their own devices, they can only see [...]
Since flu season is coming, I've rounded up a recipe for a low-cost screen cleaner that works on the ePortals. Simply take equal parts distilled water and rubbing alcohol and combine them in a spray bottle. Spray this mixture onto a soft cloth (old t-shirts work nicely) and wipe the tablet screens.
It's time for the very first Tool Tip Tuesday! Every Tuesday I'll post one of my favorite educational tools and some tips about it, such as the subjects and grades that it would be most appropriate for. First up is one of my absolute favorite online tools: the PhET simulations developed by the University of [...]