Roxi Thompson

Earlier this year, Matt Miller ( @jmattmiller ) wrote an awesome blog post titled  "Caption This! A fun, deep-thinking Google Drawings activity." The blog post was co-authored by Laura Steinbrink ( @SteinbrinkLaura ) and it included an explanation of four different activities that could be created using Google Drawings or Google Slides. They also provided templates, tips, and examples of how to use each of these activities in the classroom. ( Click here to read the original post. ) I tried the "Caption This & Comment" activity for a Martin Luther King Jr. unit we were doing in class. In order to build some background knowledge, students completed a few different activities: Google Arts & Culture : I tried to hook students' attention by having them explore images related to King . They chose one image that stood out to them and they shared it on a collaborative Padlet board with an explanation of why they chose it.  YouTube Playlist: ...

This week I tried using Adobe Spark Video for the first time. I'm enrolled in Tony Vincent's ( @tonyvincent ) Classy Videos course, and our assignment this week was to create a narrated slideshow.  When you first log in to Adobe Spark , you can choose which type of product you want to create: I chose to create a video to persuade students and parents to attend our upcoming Back to School Night. Adobe Spark provides some templates for you to use, or you can choose to create your video from scratch.  I used the "Promote an Idea" template for my project. Once you have chosen your template, it's time to start creating! There are some basic menus inside of the video creator. These allow you to choose things such as layout, theme, and music.  You can also add narration to the slides by pressing the red button with the microphone icon at the bottom of each slide. I wrote up a brief "script" for each slide so that I wouldn't forge...

Google recently announced some updates to Google Classroom. One of those updates received a lot of attention, both positive and negative. This particular update allows teachers to "lock down" a Google Form Quiz so that students are not able to open other tabs or perform internet searches until they have completed the quiz. To be honest, I was a little surprised at the reaction on Twitter. Because I follow so many educators who I think of as progressive and forward-thinking, I assumed that most would respond with eye-rolls and frustration that Google would take what feels like a step backward in terms of innovation in education. However, I saw quite a bit of excitement over this "update." I saw comments like "This is what my teachers have been begging for!"  Really?!? Locking down the internet is what teachers are BEGGING for? That's a sad thought.  But it's true. This announcement happened to come a week after my district held it's...