Category Archives: Teaching Tools

FlipGrid is a tool that allows student to easily upload video and an entire class set of videos can be seen in one place.  Student thinking becomes visible and engaging allowing for deeper connections between students. Teachers inspire students by setting up a topic and then students can upload their own responses and view the perspectives of their classmates, allowing the topic to extend beyond your classroom with outside class participation in the FlipGrid.

Above is an example of a FlipGrid via DoInk where a Green Screen was used for their videos and Students could transport themselves to another place for their responses.  This post has some great ideas and don’t forget that we have a Green Wall at Pike on the way up to the Tech Office if you would like to do a similar project.

For those of you using FlipGrid or interested in getting started there is a new Educator’s Guide to FlipGrid available.  This detailed eBook outlines the How and the Why of FlipGrid and is by and for Educators to promote a tool that allows students to share their voice in the classroom.   

If you would like help getting started with FlipGrid please be in touch with the Tech Dept.

Note: Learn | Try | Amplify @PikeSchool was created with the hopes that you will be exposed to some technology tools that have the potential to amplify your daily teaching in a way that can lead to powerful learning. The book Amplify by Katie Muhtaris and Kristin Ziemke has been an excellent resource about digital learning in the elementary and middle school classroom and inspired the name of this initiative.

This post that lists 9 TED Talks recommended by students, for students caught our attention.  It includes a range of TED Talks about topics like education, character development, leadership, public speaking and what adults can learn from children that students have given the seal of approval.  It was published by a new resource called TED-Ed: Lessons Worth Sharing.  Their Lesson Library is a growing list of many lively lessons created by educators in collaboration with professional animators that can be a nice supplemental resource to amplify your teaching.

With a free account you can also create your own lessons or flip an existing lesson to adjust any previously created content to fit your needs and share with your students, with interactive reflection options and a way to plug any YouTube video into a lesson separate from all of the distractions of YouTube.  If you need help or if you give TED-Ed: Lessons Worth Sharing a try let us know.

Formative assessment is assessment for learning rather than assessment of learning.  It is a way to check for understanding along the way and guide teacher decisions about future instruction.  It allows teachers to differentiate instruction and ideally occurs on a daily basis.  This can feel overwhelming due to the competing interest of covering material.  But, reflecting and checking for understanding is an important part of learning.  It helps students get a better sense of how they are doing and teachers know what needs review and what doesn’t. Formative assessment apps can help with the time aspect.  They are easy to implement, ensure that all students are heard from, and organize the results into quick to understand bar graphs, pie charts, or excel spreadsheets allowing teachers to easily see if the class is ready to move on.   Tony Vincent has put together an excellent blog post called “Know Students Better: 16 Tools for Formative Assessment” where he details the ins and outs of 16 different formative assessment apps. Many of the apps are the same but some offer short answer, others offer premade exit tickets, fast past quizzes, or drawing features.  I encourage you to read through the brief descriptions of each app and choose 1 or 2 to try out and work into your repertoire of formative assessment strategies. Do you use one of these apps regularly? Which one is your favorite?