1. History Daily Podcast
One of my favorite podcasts is American History Tellers, which often tells of history not told in history class over the course of 4-5 episodes. But the same podcast host (and writer and producer) has another podcast called History Daily that tells of what happened on that day in history. These are shorter episodes, on average 25 minutes or shorter, and I think these would be great as hooks or warm-ups for high school history classes or for extending lessons. Some episodes might be a bit too much for middle school, but I would listen and figure out what works for your classes.
Wednesday’s episode talked about Henry VIII’s split with the Catholic church over wanting to marry Anne Boleyn and I discovered new things I didn’t know before. Have your students listen to a few episodes and come up with their own version on what you’re currently studying or as an alternative assessment for finals.
2. Canva Design Skills for Students
Part of Canva’s Design School has a whole section devoted to helping students learn about and understand design skills that they can use with assignments. So far, about 1,700 students have gone through the course. The course goes over 7 design skills in a video format, available with subtitles and transcripts. The skills covered are: search and edit elements, upload and edit media, how to record yourself, add and style text, edit photos, add animations, and use 3rd party apps inside Canva. Great for any beginner users!
If your students have already been using Canva and you want to progress their creativity even further, check out their other courses such as “typography and layout”, “creating a logo”, “presentations to impress from the experts”, and others.
3. Coaching Conversation Template
Are you an instructional coach or technology coach looking for more structured ways to lead coaching cycles? Check out the below Canva template by Nici Foote that follows the Google Certified Coach process.
Not a Google Certified Coach yet? I highly recommend it! Ask me in the comments if you have any questions!
4. Google PD Differentiated Choice Board
Speaking of Google, Cat Lamin designed the below choice board for a recent PD with teachers and let them choose what they wanted to learn about as everyone was at different levels with the material.
5. Emoji Reactions in Google Docs
This is a great way for students to peer review each other’s work or to leave feedback yourself. I first learned about something similar to this in Tony Vincent’s Classy Graphics course (which I highly recommend). Each week, we would have an assignment and then share it with the others in the class, but with the comments only link. You could view and comment on another classmate’s work without someone changing something accidentally.
I shared this method with the art teacher in my building and she started using it with some of her digital art pieces with students in Google Drawings. She added an emoji piece and at the time, students would find an emoji and copy and paste it in, but now this makes everything much easier!
What’s your favorite weekly find this week?
One favor before you go – social media is an awesome way for educators to connect, but it’s been hard for me to read lately, thus I’m not finding as many great finds. Do you have a find to share and think it should be featured? Leave a comment below!
You can see all Weekly Finds in this Wakelet collection.
Ms Priester EDU 