Using Wakelet for Curation!

This is the last week of school, but the next few weeks are going to be super busy! I'm presenting four different sessions at the DV Tech Fest (our district tech conference) this summer, so I'll be doing some research and preparing my materials.

This summer I will be presenting the following sessions:

Unleash the Power of Google Slides
Cultivating Collaboration with Google
Getting started with Google Sites
Elevate Your Learning: Twitter for Educators

My session on Twitter for Educators is new this year, and I'm really excited about it! My experiences interacting with other educators on Twitter have really helped me grow professionally. I was able to learn from teachers who generously shared their ideas and resources, and I took those new ideas and tried them in my own classroom. Twitter also showed me the possibilities that exist when we stop assuming that we have to run schools the same way they were run when we were in school. It has been so inspiring to see the innovative teaching and learning practices going on in other schools. I would love to help other educators get started on Twitter and discover all the learning possibilities that it offers!

In preparing for this session, I decided to try using Wakelet to curate the resources that I wanted to share with my teachers. So far it has been really easy to use, and I really love that it allows you to share the collections you create! This means that I can share the link to the collection with the teachers that attend my session so they can revisit the resources at their own convenience. I also really like the Wakelet Chrome extension because it is super easy to add a new resource to a collection!

Click here for the link to the Twitter collection I have been working on!

How have you used Wakelet for curation? I would love to hear from you!

Comments

Create an Instagram Story!

One day on Twitter, I came across a tweet from Ryan O'Donnell ( @creativeedtech ) in which he shared a Facebook template that could be used for students to demonstrate their learning. I clicked on the link to his website , and I was AMAZED at all the cool templates he had created for teachers to use for free! I decided to try using an Instagram template during a unit on the planets in our solar system. I wanted students to demonstrate what they learned about the different planets, but I wanted them to do it in a creative way. Here are the directions I gave to my students: Here are some student examples: Student Example #1 Student Example #2 Student Example #3 Student Example #4 I really enjoyed this activity, and I love how students familiar with hashtags were able to create and use them in clever ways! If I was to go back and do this again, I would spend some time working with students less familiar with social media and hashtags and give them some...

First Week of School

We just wrapped up our first week of school! I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know our new 5th grade students! Here are some of the activities we did to start building our classroom culture and learn more about each other: "All About Me" Google Drawing Students learned how to use some of the basic features of Google Drawings by creating a Drawing about themselves. The basic requirements were that they include their name, a picture of themselves, and text/images that describe their personalities or interests. I created an example to give them an idea of what it could look like. I used this activity last year, and I really enjoyed what my students created. However, I decided this year to give them more time to just play with and explore the tools in Google Drawing. I feel like this really paid off because students were able to discover how to use some of the tools and share with each other instead of just relying on me to show them how to use it. ...

Virtual EdTech Coaching Sessions

I'm really enjoying these virtual tech coaching sessions with teachers across our district! Here are some takeaways about coaching virtually: 🤝 Building relationships is still key to effective coaching. I try to look for things a teacher has on their desk or wall that I can see in the camera. This helps start a conversation about something meaningful to the teacher and starts our session on a positive note. ❓ Ask lots of questions rather than jumping in with a solution. I like to ask, "Can you please share your screen and show me how you would typically do/get to ____?" rather than telling them where to click right away. It helps me learn about how they navigate digital tools. 📧 Follow up the conversation with an email. I like to include a short video with a quick tutorial about something specific they talked about during the session. It helps demonstrate that I was actively listening and that I'd love to keep the conversation going and keep working together. What...

Roxi Thompson

Search This Blog