Roxi Thompson

In a previous post, I wrote about how our district was trying "choice sessions" for our monthly district-wide PD days. One of the choice sessions we offered was a "Podcast & Pedometers" session.  I LOVE listening to podcasts, and I think they are a great way to learn and really push yourself to think deeper, and sometimes differently, about topics that interest you. One of the first podcasts that I started listening to regularly was the Google Teacher (Tribe) Podcast with Matt Miller and Kasey Bell . One of the best things about that podcast was that I always learned something new, and sometimes I even learned about an idea that I could try that same day in class. I thought it would be awesome if our teachers could learn more about a topic related to education, and then they could share out their learning with each other.  While I have seen many Twitter posts about districts trying out this type of PD, I got most of the ideas for ours from a blog post

Flippity is a free website that has a wide variety of Google Sheet templates which you can use to create fun classroom activities, such as flashcards, scavenger hunts, and quiz shows.  As a classroom teacher, I loved using the Random NamePicker tool because I could easily create random groups of students for classroom activities. Each activity includes a demo, instructions, and a free template.  I recently tried a new activity on the website called Flippity Manipulatives. This template allows you to use a Google sheet to create a set of click-and-drag objects. It's pretty easy to set up, and once I started experimenting with it, I started thinking of so many different ways that teachers could use it in the classroom! Here is a quick video I made to introduce teachers to the basics of how to get started: Example Activities I made a few example activities to demonstrate how this tool could be used in different content areas: Social Studies: US