Digital Tools For A New School Year

https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/interland
To make the most of the Internet, kids need to be prepared to make smart decisions. Interland is an adventure-packed online game that teaches the fundamentals of digital safety and citizenship through hands-on practice. Way to go Google for this addition to their family of educational tools!

Mystery Doug is a video series with five minute videos that answer questions that students wonder about. Why do we get goosebumps? Why does soap get bubbles? Why do zebras have stripes? These videos are great for 5 minute classroom breaks, snack time, rewards or warm-ups. Sign up using your email address, and they will send you the videos several times a week. They are fun and engaging!

Writing Sparks provides a series of writing challenges for students. Best of all, it is free! My favorite part of Writing Sparks is the planning graphic organizer that students can use while planning their creative writing stories, poems, opinion pieces and article analysis pieces.

Loom is a Chrome extension that allows users to make screencasts. This is by no means the first screencast creator that I have used, but it is one of the easiest for students using Chromebooks. Students can use Loom to annotate their digital projects and share with their teacher and each other!

Trueflix is a paid digital resource for grade 3-6 science and social studies. Each topic area has a short introduction video and an interactive eBook that students can all use at the same time. This is our first year using this resource at Oak Hills, so I am excited for students to try it out. Our teachers are excited to have nonfiction support for their science and social students lessons.