Believe it or not we're closer to the start of the new school year than we are to the end of the last one. Whether we're going back into our physical classrooms or staying in an online environment, we're going to need to get to know our new students and they need to get to know each other. One way to do this is through asking fun icebreaker questions. If you've run through all of your common icebreaker questions and want some new ones to try, take a look at Icebreakers.io.
Icebreakers.io offers lists of icebreaker questions. The questions are arranged in categories for small groups, for introverts, for adults, for work, and for fun. Coming soon they'll have lists specifically for school settings. All of the questions can be viewed individually and copied. You can also download the lists of questions in convenient PDFs.
Applications for Education
I looked through the lists on Icebreakers.io and found plenty that I would feel comfortable posing to students in my classroom, in a Zoom meeting, or in Google Classroom to start a discussion. I'm looking forward to seeing the school questions list that Icebreakers.io is building.
Over the last few months I've written a bunch of blog posts and made a handful of videos on simple ways to make whiteboard instructional videos in your web browser. These have been popular, in part, because this style of video can be made using tools that are readily available to Chromebook users. As a reader pointed out to me in an email this morning, I haven't put all of these videos and posts together in one place. So to remedy that I've put together the following compilation of five ways to make whiteboard instructional videos.
Try using Screencastify to record over the free drawing space provided by Google's online version of Jamboard. The online version of Jamboard is free unlike the physical product of the same name that Google sells. One of the benefits of using Jamboard for this kind of video is that when you are done you can share the Jamboard images with your students. You could even share the Jamboard via Google Classroom so that students have a copy of the process that you demonstrated while making your video.
Loom is also an excellent and popular choice for making screencast videos right from your web browser. In the following video I demonstrate how I paired Loom and Google's Jamboard to make a whiteboard-style instructional video. One of the tips that I shared in the video is to use the sharing option in Jamboard to give your students a copy of the drawings or sketches that you use in your instructional video.
Flipgrid offers an integrated whiteboard function.You can use this feature to create whiteboard videos for your students to watch in Flipgrid. You can also have your students use the whiteboard tools to reply to a prompt that you have given to them. In my video that is embedded below I provide an overview of how to use the whiteboard function and a couple of other functions in Flipgrid.
Wakelet has integrated the Flipgrid camera into their service so that you can create whiteboard-style instructional videos directly within your Wakelet collections. Watch my video below to see how that process works.
Seesaw is my go-to tool for making digital portfolios. I like it because it's a versatile platform that can be used for more than just portfolio creation. You can use it as a blog, use it to share announcements with parents, use it to distribute assignments, and you can use it to create whiteboard videos. In fact, there are a couple of ways that you and your students can create whiteboard videos in Seesaw. Both of those methods are outlined in my new video that is embedded below.
Book Creator is one of my go-to tools for making ebooks and digital portfolios. In fact, I like it so much that it's one of the featured tools in my Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp. And now there is a new feature that makes Book Creator better than ever. That new feature is the option to copy multiple pages from one of your books and re-use them in another book.
In Book Creator you can now copy and re-use any of the pages in your books including the cover page. This can be done within the same book or be done between multiple books.
Ooh... this is useful. 👀
You can now copy multiple pages in Book Creator. What's more, you can copy pages to other books! 📚
Made an update to a template? With this feature, you can send it out to everyone in the class at once. ➡️
Applications for Education
As Book Creator wrote in their Tweet announcing this new feature, copying and pasting pages could be quite useful in creating a template that you want students to use for their books. I find that when using Book Creator as a tool for a portfolio it's nice to have students follow the same structure. Following the same structure makes it easier for a teacher to quickly locate an artifact related to a topic or standard within a portfolio.
Doozy is a neat service for creating online quiz games that you can share with anyone and they can play without having to register for an account. The quiz games that you create on Doozy can be multiple choice or short answer questions. The games that you make can, and probably should, include pictures as part of your questions. Doozy quiz games can be played individually and in teams.
The best way to understand how Doozy works is to just go to the site and select a game to play by yourself. (If you're of my generation, take a crack at the 1980's movie trivia game). You can play any of the games in the public gallery on your own and get a score at the end.
To create a game on Doozy you can either modify one of the existing games on the site or create a game from scratch. To create a game from scratch just click the "create" button on the home page and then title your quiz game, upload a cover image, and start adding questions. Whether you use multiple choice or short answer questions you do need to include a correct answer for each question. When you have finished creating your Doozy quiz game you can share it by clicking the "run quiz" option. Clicking "run quiz" will create a game pin that you can share with others to enter at Doozy.live to play the game.
Doozy games can be played in teams. To play in teams one player has to choose a game to join then select "play with friends." That selection will then generate a unique link to share with teammates.
Applications for Education
Doozy doesn't require players to register to play the games which makes it quick and easy to get a group of students playing your quiz game in your classroom or in a Zoom or Google Meet call. Doozy doesn't offer any options for you to track your students' scores so playing games in Doozy is purely a review or practice activity.
If your students are over 13, you might consider having them create their own Doozy games to share and show what they know about a topic.
Next week I'm hosting the third session of the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp. The first two sessions were full of enthusiastic teachers who asked great questions and shared great ideas over the course of ten interactive webinars. Some of the topics that sparked the most questions were online assessment, digital portfolios, video creation, and developing virtual tours. But those are just some of the topics that are covered during the week. The full list is available right here on the registration page.
There is still time to register for the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp that runs next Monday through Friday. A handful of seats are still available. You can claim yours right here.
Here are some comments from people in the first two sessions of this year's Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp:
This is an awesome bootcamp with more stuff to learn than I could have ever imagined. The one I'm most interested in the portfolio. I can't wait to play around with it. Thank you for offering this camp.
Thank you for a great workshop!
I learned a lot and I will apply some of them to my Spanish classes next year.
The camp with you has been a delight and I've learned so much from you. I laugh every time you make a funny face for selfies or make drawings and laugh at yourself. I just wanted to let you know that I'm having a great time and learning so much.
p.s. sometimes people ask why I advertise this event here if it's not free. The answer is that registration fees from this event and other PD webinars go toward keeping Free Technology for Teachers going.
