What did you learn? I learned some great new tools and some new ways to old tools in the library. I didn’t expand my personal network as much as I’d hoped-every year I’ve done this I say I’m going to try harder to checkout more of the work done by other participants and I never… Continue reading Cool Tools for School: Final Reflection
For the last several years, inspired by a Cool Tool topic I had worked on, I have been creating monthly library reports for my principal. I’ve been using Piktochart and have loved it-I was able to customize my report template just the way I wanted and reuse it month after month. My principal loved getting… Continue reading Cool Tools for Schools, You Pick: Google Data Studio!
In addition to library centers, I currently have graphic novels and Free Comic book day on the brain. One of the things that came up at the PD I took on teaching with graphic novels and comics was that we don’t often take the time to teach kids how to read comics like we do… Continue reading Cool Tools for Schools, Thing x: Flash Cards, Quiz Games and More
Once upon a time, we used Bitstrips for Education several times a year in the library for projects across multiple grade levels. Every since it went away, so have those great projects we did with it. Recently, I attended a great workshop through my local BOCES on Free Comic Book day and using comics in… Continue reading Cool Tools for Schools, Thing 6: Digital Storytelling
If there’s a theme to my Cool Tools year, besides library centers, it seems to be revisiting things I haven’t done in years. This tool was no exception, to either of those themes! Years ago, I did a class on flipped classrooms and I used Aurasma to create Augmented Reality centers for poetry month (I… Continue reading Cool Tools for Schools, Tool 13: Augmented and Virtual Reality
I feel like almost every year I’ve done Cool Tools, I’ve also done a Twitter related option. You’d think I’d either a) have run out of things to explore by now or b) finally have gotten “good” at this Twitter thing but alas, neither of those things seem to have happened so here I am:… Continue reading Cool Tools for Schools, Thing 4: Twitter, Facebook & Personal Learning Networks
I’m not a stranger to screencasting (I’ve done a few here and there over the years) but I’m always on the lookout for ways to improve on something I use and/or get new ideas for ways to use it in the classroom. What I currently do: Right now, I primarily use screencasting for technology directions… Continue reading Cool Tools for Schools, Thing 19: Screencasting and Screen Sharing
This is another Cool Tool topic that never disappoints! I don’t know how Google keeps coming up with new things but they do and they do it faster than I can keep up with them-thank goodness Polly does this fabulous round up every year! What I looked at: Both the Primarily Google blog and website… Continue reading Cool Tools for School, Thing 28: Anything Goes Google
Recently, I’ve been inspired to start bringing back library centers and more flipped classroom style learning in the library. I did library centers and more flipped classroom instructional videos earlier in my career but that style of learning in the library kind of fell off my radar when we lost our library clerks a few… Continue reading Cool Tools for School, Thing 29: App-palooza!
While I have participated in a few Breakouts at trainings, workshops and conferences, I hadn’t been brave enough to try creating my own and/or doing a pre-made one with my students. Part of the problem was that I was overwhelmed by the idea of how much work I imagined it would be-and while creating one… Continue reading Cool Tools for School: Thing 15, BreakoutEDU
