Stimulating Science Simulations

I guess that the #OneWord movement is nothing new, but this is the first year I have opted in. My word for 2019 #ambition. Why ambition? Because even though I may still appear to be an overachiever who finds extra hours in the day to keep growing my #PLN and learning about #edtech trends, I feel less ambitious than I was when I first started this blog. Somewhere along the journey, I think I really did slow down a bit. Ultimately, my #OneWord is about a sense of accomplishment. It would be easy to choose #OneWord and do nothing with it, but I am determined to regain my #Ambition this year! January is off to a good start, but it is early. I am not posting this to say, "Hey look at me and everything I am doing." I am posting this to acknowledge areas where I am being ambitious and reflect on ways that my #ambition still needs work. Ambition around the house... YUCK! Housework - seriously not my favorite thing. Plus, it is a never ending battle. My #ambition here is limit...

I would like to welcome my colleague Emily Hine as a guest blogger. Emily is a 5th grade teacher at New Century International Elementary School.  I have asked her to share her experience flipping the classroom using Edpuzzle.  Neither of us receives any compensation for endorsing Edpuzzle.  This post is representative of her personal experience. Looking for a way to incorporate videos into your classroom, and still hold students accountable?  Forgot to print the paper that goes with the video?  No problem, Edpuzzle is an awesome tool if you want to flip the classroom and still hold students accountable.   Edpuzzle    allows you pull videos from other people or include your own videos.  If you are looking into flipping the classroom and want to spend most of your time in small group, or even differentiate your learning with different videos,  Edpuzzle    allows you to spend more time in small group then giving a lectu...

I love using Edmodo with my students. It has many benefits. I am seeing more and more people using it all the time and thought maybe I should share some of my tips and ah-ha moments. Tip # 1 Using Groups - The group feature is great for differentiating student assignments. I have a group called 5th grade. Within that group students are re-grouped into groups A, B, and C. This enables me to post assignments specific to the needs of each group of students. I also work with a group of students competing in Science Olympiad. These are 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. I created a Science Olympiad group and gave them each the join code. There are 18 events and only 2 students participate in each one. I use the group feature to create small groups under the Science Olympiad group and am able to send information specifically to each partnership based on their event. Using the grouping feature allows for a wonderfully customized experience. Especially when combined with other tools like the libra...