A few weeks ago ClassDojo added a new feature for creating student groups within your ClassDojo classrooms. In that post I teased that more frequently requested features would be added to ClassDojo before summer's end. This week ClassDojo added another of those features in the form of what they're calling Class Story. ClassDojo's Class Story is a feature intended to help you keep parents informed about what's happening in your classroom. Class Story provides a wall onto which you can post text and image updates for parents. Only parents whose students are in your classroom can see the updates and they cannot share them outside of the ClassDojo environment. Parents can "like" your posts on the Class Story wall. As a teacher you can see which parents have read the Class Story updates and which ones have not read the updates. Applications for Education ClassDojo Class Story could be a good supplement to using ClassDojo's messenger service. The Class Story feature is good for sharing the highlights of a class project or field trip. The messenger app is good for one-on-one communication with parents. Class Story will be available in the ClassDojo iOS, Android, and web apps. Click here to register for access today. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesSimplyCircle Helps You Organize Communication With Parents5 Posts to Jumpstart Your Classroom BlogHow to Create Diigo Groups 

WhatsDue is a free service for sending due date reminders to students. The service sends push notifications to students' iOS and Android devices. I reviewed the service last spring and thought that it was good as it doesn't rely on SMS/ text messaging. Just in time for the new school year WhatsDue released some updates. There are three noticeable updates to WhatsDue on the administrative side of things. First, you can now define the type of assignment (homework, quiz, project, or custom description) and add a description to it. Second, the due date now defaults to "tomorrow" unless you change it. Third, you no longer have to specify a time for each assignment's due date. Instead of having to specify "August 14 at 9am" you can now just leave it as "August 14." Here's how WhatsDue works. First, the teacher registers for a free account on the WhatsDue website and creates a class or classes. Each class is assigned its own unique join code. Teachers then invite students and parents to join the class through the join code. Once students have joined the class they will begin receiving due date reminders on their mobile devices. Teachers can create multiple classes and schedule multiple reminders for each class from one dashboard on the WhatsDue website. Students opening WhatsDue on their iPhones or Android phones will see reminders of approaching due dates and past due dates. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesWhatsDue - Schedule and Send Reminders to StudentsSimplyCircle Helps You Organize Communication With ParentsLearn a New Language With the Help of Friends on HelloTalk 

Disclosure: SeeSaw is an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com Earlier this summer the popular digital portfolio service, SeeSaw, expanded to offer a Chrome app, Android app, and browser edition to go along with the popular iPad app. This week SeeSaw unveiled version 2.0. SeeSaw 2.0 keeps all of the great features that have made it popular including letting students join your class by scanning a QR code, taking pictures of physical work, and importing digital work. To those useful features SeeSaw 2.0 adds more tools for drawing, an option for teachers to enable "liking" and commenting on work, and an option to log-in with a Google Account. Applications for Education Of the new features in SeeSaw 2.0 the most significant is the option to enable "liking" and commenting. If you enable that option for your students, they can use likes and comments to give each other feedback on the work in their digital portfolios. One other new feature that you might find helpful is the option to archive old classes. If you're planning to use SeeSaw this fall, take a look at the free presentation resource that SeeSaw offers. The presentation will help you explain to parents how SeeSaw works and why you're using it. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesA Short Interview With the Founder of Shadow Puppet Edu & SeeSawAn Easy Way to Create Your Own iPad & Android GameseduClipper Updates With New Tagging and Discovery Features 

A wave of updates to ed tech products is a sure sign that the new school year isn't far away. Already today I've shared updates about SeeSaw, ClassDojo, and WhatsDue. Not to be left out, Versal has some updates for teachers too. Versal is a service for building online courses. (Click here to learn how to use it). Courses can be comprised of text, images, videos, quizzes, and what interactive elements that Versal calls gadgets. Many Versal gadgets are designed to help students see and model problems in geometry and algebra. You will also find some Versal gadgets that are interactive, explanatory images. All of the Versal gadgets can be found in their new marketplace section. The other update to Versal to note is their integration with Google Classroom. You can now create your online course with Versal and share it to your Google Classroom. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHow to Create Diigo GroupsGoogle Apps Updates You Might Have Missed in JulyChemical Reactions in a Safe, Online Environment 

One of last week's most popular posts was about a new video highlighting tool called Vibby. Vibby allows you to highlight and comment on sections of YouTube videos. You can even break the videos to play only the sections that you highlight in the video's timeline. An email that I received today from Vibby gave me a good idea about how to use the service to help students analyze debates and presentations. Vibby is running a contest called Highlight the GOP Debate. In the contest they're asking people to highlight outrageous moments, exaggerated truths, and fluffy or meaningless statements. The contest is open to anyone who is a registered Vibby user. Applications for Education Reading about Vibby's Highlight the GOP Debate contest made me think about using Vibby to help students identify and understand key points in debates and presentations. You could ask students to watch videos and identify people who make consistent eye contact, who pace their presentations well, or any other characteristic that you want them to emulate when they deliver their own presentations. You could also have students use Vibby to identify and highlight examples of people using logical fallacies in debates, identify forms of advertising and manipulation, or highlight the best arguments made in a presentation. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesChemical Reactions in a Safe, Online EnvironmentHow to Create Diigo GroupsGoogle Apps Updates You Might Have Missed in July 

20 Classroom Setups That Promote Thinking by TeachThought Staff This is part 1 in our #iteachthought campaign. This is our equivalent to "back to school," and is intended to help you focus in the 2015-2016 school year on taking a thoughtful approach to your craft as a teacher. Among these shifts we’ll talk about is turning our focus from content and teaching to thinkers and thinking. This is a student-centered approach to pedagogy (and heautagogy), and will consist of four parts: Part 1: Classroom Setups That Promote Thinking Part 2: Learning Profiles: What Great Teachers Know About Their Students Part 3: 50 Questions To Ask Your Students On The First Day Of School Part 4: Getting The Best Work From Your Students Learning Is An Ecology Can how you setup your classroom impact how students think? If you design learning with physical space and interaction in mind, it absolutely can. Desks are a staple of the ‘modern’ classroom as we know it. Usually these learning spaces are simple, and simply arranged: places for students to sit and read and write, lined up neatly in rows. While progress has been in the design of schools and classrooms, it’s usually only in pockets of well-funded "future schools" with very little application for the rest of us. So what can we do? That’s the point of this post. If you think of the following ideas as exactly that-ideas-then you’ll realize that none of these are either good nor bad. They’re ideas. If they are used well to solve a problem or promote a characteristic, they are being used well; if they don’t, they’re not. Many of these aren’t immediately reproducible in your own classroom. They may not work for your grade level or furniture or budget or content area. But you can take it as an idea, learn from it, and use it (or not) accordingly. So, the bit about "classroom setups impacting thinking." Learning is an ecology. Classroom design impacts classroom management impacts curriculum needs impacts lesson and unit design impacts teacher personality impacts technology needs impacts literacy strategies and teaching strategies, and so on. Each one of these possibilities will only work as well as you are able to adapt the way you plan instruction and design learning experiences. Yes, you can design a classroom using a Fishbowl approach-and not just to host a Fishbowl discussion, but for longer periods of time. You can also setup a "Google Room" or "Maker Space" and not promote thinking at all, or have students performing stunning cognitive acrobatics sitting by themselves on a cold floor. The idea here is that new ways to setup your classroom can help you think differently about how and why you use certain arrangements, and then design more intentionally moving forward (even if you just stick to plain ol’ rows). In fact, if you think of rows and rows of desks as having pros and cons, causes and effects, you’ll see that these rows lend themselves well to certain things (organization, paper passing, etc.), while not so well to others (collaboration, movement). You’ve already (perhaps unwittingly) adapted your instruction to whatever design you normally use. You plan with it in mind. If you take a new approach, you’ll need to design with that in mind as well. And that’s where the actions and behaviors that promote thinking-interaction, movement, study, making, collaboration, thinking alone, and so on-become a factor. Note, we’ve placed an asterisk* beside those approaches that are more strongly suited to "thought" than others. With that preface, on to some of the possibilities (there are many more!). 20 Ways To Setup A Classroom To Help Your Students Think 1. Maker Spaces* How this is structured depends on your space, content area, grade level, etc. But any content area can use "making" as a primary teaching and learning strategy, and to do so, you’ll need to create the spaces for that to happen. A mix of the "Learning Labs" approach and the "Google Room" may work well. 2. Geometric Mix This approach takes a mix of forms-rows, groups, semi-circled tables. While the furniture in the pic above may be beyond your reach, you can produce a similar effect with a combination of tables and desks. 3. Differentiation Stations* This is physical grouping, but based on areas of differentiation-background knowledge, reading level, an individual skill, etc. If instruction is tailored for a student in this way-with their Zone of Proximal development-there is more opportunity for thinking, teaching, and learning that "fits." 4. Fishbowl* Also a teaching strategy, Fishbowls sees a group of students in the middle, and a group on the outside in a circle facing the group in the middle. You can also arrange your classroom this way permanently-or at least for an extended period of time. The "fish" in the middle have one function (e.g., reading roles from a play, solving a problem, analyzing art, etc.) while the group on the outside participates in a #backchannel twiiter chat with a love running log on a screen. Here, everyone can have a voice-and an opportunity for thought. 5. One Group + 4 Rows This one is what it sounds like it’d be-one group complimented by 4 rows. This setup could be useful if the majority of the class is often working on one activity-or part of an activity, while the bulk of the class works on something else. It obviously can be used collaboratively as well.  6. 2 Groups + 2 Rows Same as above, but more of the class is in a group this time, so the class is split more evenly. 7. Function Pods* This one is similar to Differentiation Stations, only the idea here is less about differentiation and more about a task. Think literature circles, for example, where everyone has a role. The difference here is that the whole classroom is setup that way. 8. A ‘Google Room’* Think colors. Lots of colors. Shapes and textures, too. Diverse lighting sources. A lot of natural light, if possible. Areas to work alone, in pairs, or in groups. Sitting. Standing. Openness. Collaboration. May not be possible to realize completely, but you could use it as inspiration. 9. Two Sides* You can also split the classroom into "two sides." This may be comprised of rows, but the room is setup in halves oftentimes facing one another. This can be especially effective for Social Studies classes, or other content areas that use Accountable Talk as a teaching strategy. You can also have the two sides comprised of angled rows. This isn’t a huge change from traditional rows, but it does offer a few advantages if you’ve got the room, namely that students are in the line of sight of one another more naturally. 10. Giant Oval Usually this is used for team-building activities, but it’s possible to run a classroom this way for a full unit if you plan for it effectively. Maybe a steady diet of agree/disagree, debate, Socratic Seminars, and Accountable Talk, for example. 11. Teacher In The Middle Picture a "regular classroom," but with the teacher (and their desk, if they have one) in the middle. Changes the dynamic of the classroom quite a bit. Whether that’s an effective teaching tool or not depends on how you use it (the same goes with all of these, I suppose). 12. Standing Desks They’re out there. Write a grant proposal, put your desk in the middle, and make it work. 13. Horseshoe An oval with one end missing. Kind of. Not sure this would be very effective long-term, but for a reading activity or a write-around (which are terribly underrated as teaching strategies), it’d work swimmingly. 14. Two Circles Circles allow students to face one another, and encourage conversation. It’s not ideal for small group work, but for direction instruction and literacy activities, it has potential. One giant circle may not work well for a daily setup, but two circles might. With two circles, the size is obviously reduced compared to one, giving you a bit more flexibility for classroom management. 15. Rotating Groups* This is less about the shape of the desks, and more about the workflow and lesson design. The idea here is to plan lessons and units that require students to work together with different groups for different reasons, and to keep them moving, whether within one class, one week, or the unit overall. 16. Middle Circle, Outer Square Putting a square on the outside and circle on the inside-or even vice-versa-is really just a ‘geometric variation’ of the fishbowl, but the size of the circle can be adapted for daily use by a large cluster of students. 17. Learning Labs* If you can recall back to the high school science lab-high desks, "things" to tinker with, students standing and moving around small areas of collaborative learning space-that’s the idea of learning labs. This can be used in any content area and any grade level, and doesn’t even necessarily require hands-on manipulatives. Students standing around a high desk solving physics or geometry problems while "mixing" isn’t a management nightmare if you’ve planned a lesson with this approach in mind. 18. A Learning Studio* This is a non-traditional learning environment-imagine a Starbucks mixed with a library mixed with a classroom mixed with a maker space mixed with a design studio. Probably wouldn’t work if you have 35 students, but if you have less than 20, this kind of approach could change the culture of learning in your classroom. 19. Open Square Similar to #10, this one came on twitter from @rmg178, "I do an open square with the open side facing the board & I put a table in the middle for my materials." 20. Fluid Change it up weekly. Let the learning goals dictate how you use your space-and how students use their individual spaces. A fixed learning space reflects a fixed mindset. It’s not "a lot of work," it’s adapting. 20 Ways To Setup A Classroom; 20 Classroom Setups That Promote Thinking; adapted image attribution Google, flickr user makerfestivaltoronto, bsfinhull  The post 20 Classroom Setups That Promote Thinking appeared first on TeachThought.

The other day we were looking at several different blogging platforms to be utilized with our students and teachers. The goto idea seems to be to find what is free and teacher-controllable. The problem with free is that it is often void of the ability to export data and this is such a critical feature to have…especially when we consider that each person should have ownership of their own. These are conversations that we will have with every platform that we roll out with our students and teachers. It is unacceptable for students to not have access to their own work, even after they leave our district. It’s equally as unacceptable for teachers to turn over ownership for the sake of free and it happens more often than we are often aware. It’s interesting to be in a position to make these decisions but even more interesting to have these conversations with others as they learn that data and privacy matters greatly. Passwords!! (The most forgotten thing during the school year) In my previous district, I used to despise the password reset process. After talking with several specialist from all over the country, the despise of password management is a huge commonality. A few thoughts uttered from around the web (with anonymity of course)… "If we don’t reset their passwords, how will teachers get into what they need?" "I want to limit password resets to less than ____ because I’m tired of teachers forgetting them" "I have teachers that forget their passwords over and over again…all year" "We have them make all passwords the same so that they won’t forget" "I spend hours and hours doing nothing but resetting passwords" Long sigh… I have two digital learning specialist in my department and their main focus will be on helping teachers to integrate technology into their lessons. We literally do not have hours and hours a day to reset passwords which means that we must have a way for teachers to handle this small task themselves. Yes, I know that as small as the task is…It will still be incredibly difficult for many…at least, for now. We have to empower them to click the "forgot password" button. WE just have to. When it comes to passwords, it seems that schools tend to take the "operationally easy" route in creating, distributing and syncing. (Think…all kids sharing a password) As someone who has had her online presence "hacked"…I cringe at not teaching password safety, protection and retrieval. Which age is this appropriate? Of course, I won’t get into how we do it for obvious reasons but I will say that regardless of how we initially begin the account creation process, our teachers do have the power to retrieve their own without waiting on someone to manage a list. Ironically, we didn’t really know that…until today which means that as of now, we will be free of the "Google Form" generated password retrieval/reset list. On another note, I am so guilty of forgetting my passwords and completely rely on the ability to quickly retrieve it…without being shamed for it. Think about that for a minute.  

My office runs a yearly NYC Schools Tech Conference with about one thousand attendees. This year we wanted to focus on getting the buzz going in social media. One measure success was if we could trend on Twitter that day and we did. Here are some things we did to make that happen.I want more »

Otus is an application for iOS and web devices that aims to offer everything a mobile classroom could possibly need for both teachers and students.  They've got assignments, assessments, polls, feedback, and more, all packaged within a free and easy to use app.  If you're at a 1:1 school I highly recommend checking out Otus because, quite simply, it's awesome.  Read more on our reviews page.

This Graphic Shows the Effects Texting Has on Your Body http://lifehacker.com/this-graphic-shows-the-effects-texting-has-on-your-body-1716980731   Stephen