Tech Tools! Schoology and Brain Pop Jr.

I have used these two tech tools throughout the year, but last week I used them to a different level! Schoology is “facebook” for our classroom. Parents in our district join their child’s classroom page for updates and communication. Parents can view upcoming events, pictures, lessons, spelling lists, special links and websites that teachers recommend. I love it! It is a quick and easy way to communicate at a high quality level. I am very lucky this year! All of my parents have access to the internet, so this is the only way that I communicate with them. It saves on paper and time!

Last week my students studied special Americans. They read books about several special Americans and also used brain pop as a research tool. Brain Pop Jr. is great! It gives the students a 4-5 minute video/tutorial about information at their level. This reminds me of the TV show, The Office! I love when Michael asks fellow employees to explain things to him as if he were a third grader! I want that sometimes too! Anyways, I love knowing that every video on Brain pop will be at their level of understanding. My students watched short videos about Special Americans. They watched the Rosa Parks and Abraham Lincoln videos. They then created a poster about a special American of their choice with a partner. We did not have the IPad cart that day, but if I had the cart, I would have allowed my students to choose a special American from Brain pop to learn more about. This is a great research tool.

When they students were done with their posters, we put them up around the classroom and had “Special American Museum.” Half of the kids walked around to view the posters while the other half stood by their posters to explain and give facts about their special American. As they were doing this, I was walking around taking videos of the presentations. I put them on Schoology, so the parents could view the videos, and so my students could view their peer’s videos to learn more about other Special Americans! Two tech tools in one lesson!