Our library catalog will look different this school year. Follett is the software company who creates Destiny. They will no longer be providing updates for Quest, so we are switching to Discover for searching. Same information, but a different format. I have spent time with 6th grade in orientations using Discover. Hopefully the transition will be an easy one. HERE is a short video teaching how to do some basic searching. (You will have to scroll down a bit and select the link that says "Video-Using Destiny Discover-Students.")

Many folks are using Google Forms! These are a great way for get formative or summative feedback! They are flexible for a variety of purposes! From your Google Drive, you can create a new "Form." Several options with designs, paths, and format of results can make it visually appealing! Some teachers even know how to use the tool Flubaroo to grade the forms for them! (Sam Sherman is one who uses this.)

Another tool I LOVE is Kahoot! Super engaging with a "game-y" feel. Kids love it. They log in to Kahoot.it and enter a code to join. They get points for correct answers, but for being quick as well. There is a team option now too--one device per team, and a 5 second "team talk" is built into each question. Great for student engagement in your content areas!

Socrative is also a great tool! I like this for more formal situations, perhaps more fitting for summative assessments. You can get data at the end for each student/question to analyze and pinpoint issues in understanding. Good for individual students or for teams as well. Teachers can easily share their quizzes/tests with other teachers through a code that is assigned to the quiz. (Battle of the Books uses this tool for our battles.)

Padlet is great when you want everyone to see the group's collective thoughts--like a lot of sticky notes on a wall for all to see. It is super easy to post, share, and access and teachers have the power to delete inappropriate comments instantly.

We are off to a great start!!! I want to recognize a few teachers who are doing wonderful things already this school year!

Tonya Dexter and Tonya LeMoine have jumped in and used the Breakout Edu boxes with classes already! The kids were super engaged and critically thinking through the activities. The new kits include reflection cards which prompt the groups to think about the process. This is a great tool for the "4C's" of 21st Century Learning (Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Creativity, and Communication).

The ELD Department has embraced trying a new tool called Seesaw for archiving student work and allowing the kids to use it as a collaborative tool in the classroom! It's like Google Classroom in many ways, yet allows students to record audio with their submissions! A perfect way to measure speaking growth in students learning English! (And authentically practice using a microphone so that when assessment time comes, it is not an odd situation.)

Way to go teachers!!!

There are pretty amazing sites that I have learned about from teachers over the years. Here are some favorites for finding information!

• Newsela-current event articles that you can level by lexile for individual students!
• Wonderopolis-outstanding for curiosity and asking questions!
• ProCon.org-resource for argumentative writing ideas/finding evidence/support
• Daily Infographics-fantastic way for kids to understand information in a visual manner!