How -To Tuesday - Engagement

This week's Hot -To Tuesday is a link to the AZ K-12 Center's Blog. This blog is frequently updated with great information that you can immediately implement in your classroom.

A recent blog post, authored by one of our most loved educators and presenters, Tony Vincent is titled, Novelty and Variety Affect Engagement. This post has a few simple and stellar ideas on how to increase active engagement in your own classroom.

One of the ideas is to conduct a mock game show to review content prior to taking a test. Free templates can be downloaded to assist you in the creation of the game. You can even trick your students into reviewing the content by allowing your students develop the questions for the game show. Be sure to click on this link to read the entire post for yourself.

23 "Techy" Tips for Not so "Techy" Teachers

View this embedded slide show for some great tips on utilizing technology in the classroom.

Telescopic Text

Telescopic Text can be used to teach the power of word choice.

The site begins with a simple sentence.
Then, as you click on the gray words, the sentence expands...


...and expands.
Each time the sentence expands the sentence grows into a more descriptive and elaborate story. This activity can allow your students to experience the impact that word choice can have on a story or message that they want to convey.



* This is another great resource that I learned about from iLearntechnology.com

Scholastic Story Starters

Scholastic.com has a tool to randomly generate a story starter. The story starters are a great way to liven up writing in your classroom.
My story starter was, "Write about a camping trip with a polka-dotted bear who can fly in the sky". If I happened to be unhappy with a section of my story starter sentence, I could click the spin level to change it. Imagine the creative stories that can be created with this tool!

How -To Tuesday: Free Technology For Teachers

Most educators are excited about the role technology can play in enhancing learning. However, many feel unprepared to take advantage of digital tools in the classroom. One way to overcome anxiety is to seek out free and easy to use digital resources.

It is easy to become overwhelmed with the amount resources on the web. That is why I suggest beginning with one reliable resource and building from there.

The Free Technology For Teachers blog is a frequently updated collection of free online tools. Mr Byrne, a high school teacher from a rural school district, monitors this site. He will help you reduce your anxiety towards using technology in instruction.

Pinky Dinky Doo

PinkyDinkyDoo.com has become a favorite in our classroom.

This web site is based on the popular PBS show Pinky Dinky Doo. According to Sesameworkshop.org, Seven-year-old Pinky Dinky Doo is a pink-haired girl with a stupendous imagination. She’s very good at making up stories about everything from rude alligators to shoes made out of salami.

The website has fun activities for kids to take part in including word games, printables, story podcasts, videos, a place for students to create their own story podcast, and there is even a section for grownups.

Pinky, her little brother Tyler and their friends have helped us create story podcasts in our classroom. Each story has a definite sequence of events that are highlighted by discussing the beginning, middle, and end. Pinky also loves to use Great Big Fancy Words like “flabbergasted” and “exasperated,”. We love this part of each story because it reminds our class of the weekly vocabulary words that we are learning, and we love to hear the trumpet sound that is played before every Great Big Fancy Word.

Mad Libs - Grammar

Mad Libs is a fun grammar activity to play. You can play online through FunBrain.com.
There are a variety of story genres to choose from.

Here is a Mad Libs that we made in class. We hope you have as much fun reading it as we had making it.