Mo Physics Mo Problems

My practice the last few years has been collaborations with classrooms outside of my building. It's something that I always looked forward to. You can read about some of these amazing collaborations between high school and elementary school kids in these older posts: Fury Road Harmonious Instruction Last week, I was invited to be part of one of our elementary school's high interest day in which students are able to attend a wide variety of sessions that allow them to explore a range of topics. I decided to see if any of my high school students wanted to be a part of sharing the physics of sound and electricity with the elementary students. I was lucky enough to have 5 amazing students answer the call! I won't go into too much depth about what we did. But we designed two different activities to engage in. The first was using Makey Makey Kits to use as music inputs and video game controllers. The second was using LittleBits Synth Kits to allow students to expl...

I’m excited to announce the release of a handbook I co-authored with Mary Alys Foutz called Getting Started with Pear Deck. Get access the eBook by clicking here! I have been using Pear Deck in my classroom since 2015. I’ve watched the tool grow dramatically in its functionality but also its easy to be integrated into the classroom from a teacher and student perspective. The new book is an amazing guide in terms of how to get started with Pear Deck and even introduce you to features that I didn’t know existed until we started work on the book. But for those who are new to Pear Deck or have several other tech tools that they are using in their classroom, I want to share with you why I continue to come back to it as my number one classroom tech tool for learning.  That reason is the feedback I get from my learners. Since I began using it, Pear Deck has consistently been the number 1 thing my students say helps them learn in the classroom. So rather than me preaching about Pear ...

As a part of March Madness, my students did a EdTech Tournament bracket. The finals were between Gimkit and Pear Deck. Pear Deck won, but my students love both tools.  So when someone asked me if I ever thought of an appsmash between the two, I had to try something out. This is a triple app smash that links Pear Deck to Gimkit using Quizlet. The appsmash uses student generated explanations, definitions, and visuals to create a GimKit. If you are not familiar with Pear Deck Vocabulary it allows students collaborate in the creation of flashcards from a list of predetermined terms or concepts. These flashcards are have both a written and visual component. For all the details on Pear Deck Vocabulary, I’d recommend heading over to Getting Started with Flashcard Factory. If you are not familiar with Gimkit . It is a formative quiz game that allows students to work at questions at their own pace while competing against their classmates. In addition, participants can go to an in ...