#Alternative Wordle for Kids

[digitalsushma007]

Wordle for kids are amazing, right? The word game Wordle has been ingrained in adult culture and is now compared to a habit that one unintentionally adopts.

[robindrake93]

Float (2748 words) by robindrake93 Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Luke Castellan/Percy Jackson Characters: Luke Castellan, Percy Jackson Additional Tags: POV Third Person, One Shot, Living Together, Kidnapped Percy Jackson, Boys Kissing, Kid Fic, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Selectively Mute Percy Jackson, Kidnapping Series: Part 21 of Wordle Answers As Writing Prompts Summary: Once upon a time, Luke kidnapped Percy. But it was for the best.

[percy-x-luke]

Float (2748 words) by robindrake93 Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Luke Castellan/Percy Jackson Characters: Luke Castellan, Percy Jackson Additional Tags: POV Third Person, One Shot, Living Together, Kidnapped Percy Jackson, Boys Kissing, Kid Fic, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Selectively Mute Percy Jackson, Kidnapping Series: Part 16 of Wordle Answers As Writing Prompts Summary: Once upon a time, Luke kidnapped Percy. But it was for the best.

[c0zmo-writes]

Notes for chapter 12 of Birds of a Feather.

WARNING!! Brief mention of implied suicide, quick mention of animal murder.

Chapter 12- New Plan: You’re All Going to Die

@possum-quesadilla @crawlingcarcass @raineisinkless @katslitterbox

The chapter title is a reference to the musical.

“Well, there’s my dad. The guy’s obsessed with puzzles. Jigsaws, crosswords, cryptograms, you name it. He’s insanely good at solving them too,” Shilo spoke, smiling to herself.”

He’s got an 800 day streak for Wordle. He frames his completed jigsaw puzzles. He’s currently working on a round, solid color, 1000 piece puzzle.

“I really wanted to find you. I didn’t have much interest in anything else, and they didn’t understand that. I feel like they’ve never really understood me.”

I know how that sounds. I KNOW HOW THAT SOUNDS. She is not trying to be angsty. She has never been good in social situations and was shunned by her peers as a kid. She’s also autistic, which doesn’t help.

“Oh great, I was wondering when you’d rear your ugly head again,”

Maybe not a great idea to taunt the thing that can incinerate you with a snap of her fingers.

“He wasn’t allowed to use the microwave anymore after The Grape Incident a couple weeks back,”

The Grape Incident…

“He was gently nibbling on a wooden cylinder (an alternative to biting his nails)”

Shilo’s been trying to find him an alternative to biting his nails after what he did to his hands while he was with Juno. He’s getting better :)

“After dinner, they went to bed and Shilo melted into the silk bed sheets that she definitely didn’t own before.”

Beetlejuice conjured up some silk sheets so Shilo could sleep more comfortably.

“the faint scent of smoke lingering in the air.”

He was setting things on fire.

[evnoweb]

11 Projects to Teach Digital Citizenship

Education has changed. No longer is it contained within four classroom walls or the physical site of a school building. Students aren’t confined by the eight hours between school bells or the struggling budget of an underfunded program. Now, education can be found anywhere — teaming up with students in Kenya, Skyping with an author in Sweden, or chatting with an astrophysicist on the International Space Station. Students can use Google Earth to take a virtual tour of a zoo or a blog to collaborate on class research. Learning has no temporal or geographic borders and is available wherever students and teachers find an Internet connection.

This vast landscape of resources is offered digitally, freely (often), and equitably (hopefully), but to take that cerebral trek through the online world, children must know how to do it safely, securely, and responsibly. This used to mean limiting access to the Internet, blocking websites, and layering rules upon rules hoping (vainly) to discourage students from using an infinite and fascinating resource.

It didn’t work.

Best practices now suggest that instead of cocooning students, we teach them to be good digital citizens, confident and competent. Here are eleven projects to teach kids authentically, blended with your regular lessons, the often complicated topic of becoming good digital citizens, knowledgeable about their responsibilities in an Internet world.

Kindergarten

Kindergarteners should learn the essence of what it means to be a good digital citizen. Do this with a tool they all like — art. Have them draw a picture of themselves as a digital citizen. Discuss what this looks like. What would be the landscape around the student? Would s/he be holding anything?

But before they do this, help them understand that protecting their identity is critical. They can start by NOT making their picture look anything like themselves. Then, it’s called an avatar. Why is this important? Print the avatars and hang them around the classroom. Can students identify each other?

1st Grade

A critical skill for first graders is to not only understand the idea of a “digital citizen” but why it’s important to be one. The easiest way is to relate digital citizenship to citizenship in their own neighborhood. What morals and obligations are expected of them there? How does paying attention to their surroundings at the mall equate to paying attention on websites? How is taking a nap after a busy day similar to taking a break from iPad use (or another digital device)?  How does crossing the street in front of their house after looking both ways relate to cautiously using websites?

Again using a favorite tool, have students draw a picture of themselves being a good digital citizen as they use school-appropriate websites and apps. To draw this picture correctly requires an understanding of the virtual world. For those who struggle with it, have them share thoughts with a neighbor on where it doesn’t make sense.

2nd Grade

By 2nd grade, students should understand Internet nuances that occur daily in their lives such as accessing websites safely, participating in online discussions kindly, and protecting their privacy to the level that a 2nd grader can.  Have a discussion with students about passwords — they probably use them to log onto their computers and some websites or apps. Discuss common ones that their parents might use and they shouldn’t like Password, 123456, and monkey. Then use an online password generator (like Cloudwards or Password Generator) to come up with hard-to-crack passwords.

Another fun project is to have them then create an image cube (like the one available on Big Huge Labs) with six images they drew themselves that represent “Internet safety”. These are created in their favorite school drawing program and then uploaded to the Big Huge Labs template. Once all six are uploaded, print the cube, fold, and keep on student desks to remind them of Internet safety.

3rd Grade

In 3rd grade, students should become grounded in avoiding and/or dealing with cyberbullies. Chances are, they’ve already seen a few but didn’t quite understand their insidious danger. After a thorough discussion on this, have students create a comic in Storyboard That!,  ReadWriteThink, or another favorite webtool to share the story of a student being bullied online and how s/he deals with it.

As part of understanding cyberbullies, discuss the concept of “netiquette” — the etiquette of online behavior. Create a Padlet board and post it to the class blog or class Internet start page. There, students can post a “note” about how netiquette contributes to fighting cyberbullying.

4th grade

By this age, students should understand the importance of both digital rights and responsibilities when using the Internet. Break the class into two. Have one group create a Tagxedo (or another cloud tool like Wordle) with words related to “rights” while the second group creates one with words related to “responsibilities”.

5th grade

There are two projects great for this age group to reinforce the characteristics of the online world and interaction with it. First, create a Venn Diagram comparing neighborhood safety and Internet safety. What dangers lurk in each? Where do they overlap? This can tie into math class discussions on graphs and data.

Now that students have thought through these characteristics, have them write a blog post about what it means to be a citizen of the Internet. If you don’t have blogs, students can discuss it using an audio program like Voki or a group vlog like the popular Flipgrid.

Middle School

By this point, students should have a solid understanding of most digital citizenship topics — cyberbullying, privacy, safety, and security. Reinforce how dependent they are on the Internet — and understanding its proper use — by having them take a poll on which geeky products they use daily. Embed the poll into the class blog or website (or shared digitally on the class screen). Students select all that apply to themselves. Then, share the poll results. Students will be surprised at the answers.

Alternatively, if social media is a hot issue in your school, have a debate about the pros and cons of its prominence in student and adult lives. Students can research the topic by talking to older siblings, other users, teachers, administrators, or even parents about how their experiences with social media. Tape the debate and upload the video to the class website or blog.

***

There you have it — eleven projects to authentically discuss digital citizenship. Spread these throughout the school year and tie them into core lessons so this discussion and its importance is never far from the students’ consciousness.

How do you reinforce understanding of this topic throughout the year?

— published first to TeachHUB

More on Digital Citizenship

Teaching Digital Rights and Responsibilities

A Digital Citizenship Curriculum

Building Digital Citizens–an online self-paced class

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

11 Projects to Teach Digital Citizenship published first on https://medium.com/@DigitalDLCourse

[corpasa]

11 Projects to Teach Digital Citizenship

Education has changed. No longer is it contained within four classroom walls or the physical site of a school building. Students aren’t confined by the eight hours between school bells or the struggling budget of an underfunded program. Now, education can be found anywhere — teaming up with students in Kenya, Skyping with an author in Sweden, or chatting with an astrophysicist on the International Space Station. Students can use Google Earth to take a virtual tour of a zoo or a blog to collaborate on class research. Learning has no temporal or geographic borders and is available wherever students and teachers find an Internet connection.

This vast landscape of resources is offered digitally, freely (often), and equitably (hopefully), but to take that cerebral trek through the online world, children must know how to do it safely, securely, and responsibly. This used to mean limiting access to the Internet, blocking websites, and layering rules upon rules hoping (vainly) to discourage students from using an infinite and fascinating resource.

It didn’t work.

Best practices now suggest that instead of cocooning students, we teach them to be good digital citizens, confident and competent. Here are eleven projects to teach kids authentically, blended with your regular lessons, the often complicated topic of becoming good digital citizens, knowledgeable about their responsibilities in an Internet world.

Kindergarten

Kindergarteners should learn the essence of what it means to be a good digital citizen. Do this with a tool they all like — art. Have them draw a picture of themselves as a digital citizen. Discuss what this looks like. What would be the landscape around the student? Would s/he be holding anything?

But before they do this, help them understand that protecting their identity is critical. They can start by NOT making their picture look anything like themselves. Then, it’s called an avatar. Why is this important? Print the avatars and hang them around the classroom. Can students identify each other?

1st Grade

A critical skill for first graders is to not only understand the idea of a “digital citizen” but why it’s important to be one. The easiest way is to relate digital citizenship to citizenship in their own neighborhood. What morals and obligations are expected of them there? How does paying attention to their surroundings at the mall equate to paying attention on websites? How is taking a nap after a busy day similar to taking a break from iPad use (or another digital device)?  How does crossing the street in front of their house after looking both ways relate to cautiously using websites?

Again using a favorite tool, have students draw a picture of themselves being a good digital citizen as they use school-appropriate websites and apps. To draw this picture correctly requires an understanding of the virtual world. For those who struggle with it, have them share thoughts with a neighbor on where it doesn’t make sense.

2nd Grade

By 2nd grade, students should understand Internet nuances that occur daily in their lives such as accessing websites safely, participating in online discussions kindly, and protecting their privacy to the level that a 2nd grader can.  Have a discussion with students about passwords — they probably use them to log onto their computers and some websites or apps. Discuss common ones that their parents might use and they shouldn’t like Password, 123456, and monkey. Then use an online password generator (like Cloudwards or Password Generator) to come up with hard-to-crack passwords.

Another fun project is to have them then create an image cube (like the one available on Big Huge Labs) with six images they drew themselves that represent “Internet safety”. These are created in their favorite school drawing program and then uploaded to the Big Huge Labs template. Once all six are uploaded, print the cube, fold, and keep on student desks to remind them of Internet safety.

3rd Grade

In 3rd grade, students should become grounded in avoiding and/or dealing with cyberbullies. Chances are, they’ve already seen a few but didn’t quite understand their insidious danger. After a thorough discussion on this, have students create a comic in Storyboard That!,  ReadWriteThink, or another favorite webtool to share the story of a student being bullied online and how s/he deals with it.

As part of understanding cyberbullies, discuss the concept of “netiquette” — the etiquette of online behavior. Create a Padlet board and post it to the class blog or class Internet start page. There, students can post a “note” about how netiquette contributes to fighting cyberbullying.

4th grade

By this age, students should understand the importance of both digital rights and responsibilities when using the Internet. Break the class into two. Have one group create a Tagxedo (or another cloud tool like Wordle) with words related to “rights” while the second group creates one with words related to “responsibilities”.

5th grade

There are two projects great for this age group to reinforce the characteristics of the online world and interaction with it. First, create a Venn Diagram comparing neighborhood safety and Internet safety. What dangers lurk in each? Where do they overlap? This can tie into math class discussions on graphs and data.

Now that students have thought through these characteristics, have them write a blog post about what it means to be a citizen of the Internet. If you don’t have blogs, students can discuss it using an audio program like Voki or a group vlog like the popular Flipgrid.

Middle School

By this point, students should have a solid understanding of most digital citizenship topics — cyberbullying, privacy, safety, and security. Reinforce how dependent they are on the Internet — and understanding its proper use — by having them take a poll on which geeky products they use daily. Embed the poll into the class blog or website (or shared digitally on the class screen). Students select all that apply to themselves. Then, share the poll results. Students will be surprised at the answers.

Alternatively, if social media is a hot issue in your school, have a debate about the pros and cons of its prominence in student and adult lives. Students can research the topic by talking to older siblings, other users, teachers, administrators, or even parents about how their experiences with social media. Tape the debate and upload the video to the class website or blog.

***

There you have it — eleven projects to authentically discuss digital citizenship. Spread these throughout the school year and tie them into core lessons so this discussion and its importance is never far from the students’ consciousness.

How do you reinforce understanding of this topic throughout the year?

— published first to TeachHUB

More on Digital Citizenship

Teaching Digital Rights and Responsibilities

A Digital Citizenship Curriculum

Building Digital Citizens–an online self-paced class

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

11 Projects to Teach Digital Citizenship published first on https://medium.com/@DLBusinessNow

[endevia]

11 Projects to Teach Digital Citizenship

Education has changed. No longer is it contained within four classroom walls or the physical site of a school building. Students aren’t confined by the eight hours between school bells or the struggling budget of an underfunded program. Now, education can be found anywhere — teaming up with students in Kenya, Skyping with an author in Sweden, or chatting with an astrophysicist on the International Space Station. Students can use Google Earth to take a virtual tour of a zoo or a blog to collaborate on class research. Learning has no temporal or geographic borders and is available wherever students and teachers find an Internet connection.

This vast landscape of resources is offered digitally, freely (often), and equitably (hopefully), but to take that cerebral trek through the online world, children must know how to do it safely, securely, and responsibly. This used to mean limiting access to the Internet, blocking websites, and layering rules upon rules hoping (vainly) to discourage students from using an infinite and fascinating resource.

It didn’t work.

Best practices now suggest that instead of cocooning students, we teach them to be good digital citizens, confident and competent. Here are eleven projects to teach kids authentically, blended with your regular lessons, the often complicated topic of becoming good digital citizens, knowledgeable about their responsibilities in an Internet world.

Kindergarten

Kindergarteners should learn the essence of what it means to be a good digital citizen. Do this with a tool they all like — art. Have them draw a picture of themselves as a digital citizen. Discuss what this looks like. What would be the landscape around the student? Would s/he be holding anything?

But before they do this, help them understand that protecting their identity is critical. They can start by NOT making their picture look anything like themselves. Then, it’s called an avatar. Why is this important? Print the avatars and hang them around the classroom. Can students identify each other?

1st Grade

A critical skill for first graders is to not only understand the idea of a “digital citizen” but why it’s important to be one. The easiest way is to relate digital citizenship to citizenship in their own neighborhood. What morals and obligations are expected of them there? How does paying attention to their surroundings at the mall equate to paying attention on websites? How is taking a nap after a busy day similar to taking a break from iPad use (or another digital device)?  How does crossing the street in front of their house after looking both ways relate to cautiously using websites?

Again using a favorite tool, have students draw a picture of themselves being a good digital citizen as they use school-appropriate websites and apps. To draw this picture correctly requires an understanding of the virtual world. For those who struggle with it, have them share thoughts with a neighbor on where it doesn’t make sense.

2nd Grade

By 2nd grade, students should understand Internet nuances that occur daily in their lives such as accessing websites safely, participating in online discussions kindly, and protecting their privacy to the level that a 2nd grader can.  Have a discussion with students about passwords — they probably use them to log onto their computers and some websites or apps. Discuss common ones that their parents might use and they shouldn’t like Password, 123456, and monkey. Then use an online password generator (like Cloudwards or Password Generator) to come up with hard-to-crack passwords.

Another fun project is to have them then create an image cube (like the one available on Big Huge Labs) with six images they drew themselves that represent “Internet safety”. These are created in their favorite school drawing program and then uploaded to the Big Huge Labs template. Once all six are uploaded, print the cube, fold, and keep on student desks to remind them of Internet safety.

3rd Grade

In 3rd grade, students should become grounded in avoiding and/or dealing with cyberbullies. Chances are, they’ve already seen a few but didn’t quite understand their insidious danger. After a thorough discussion on this, have students create a comic in Storyboard That!,  ReadWriteThink, or another favorite webtool to share the story of a student being bullied online and how s/he deals with it.

As part of understanding cyberbullies, discuss the concept of “netiquette” — the etiquette of online behavior. Create a Padlet board and post it to the class blog or class Internet start page. There, students can post a “note” about how netiquette contributes to fighting cyberbullying.

4th grade

By this age, students should understand the importance of both digital rights and responsibilities when using the Internet. Break the class into two. Have one group create a Tagxedo (or another cloud tool like Wordle) with words related to “rights” while the second group creates one with words related to “responsibilities”.

5th grade

There are two projects great for this age group to reinforce the characteristics of the online world and interaction with it. First, create a Venn Diagram comparing neighborhood safety and Internet safety. What dangers lurk in each? Where do they overlap? This can tie into math class discussions on graphs and data.

Now that students have thought through these characteristics, have them write a blog post about what it means to be a citizen of the Internet. If you don’t have blogs, students can discuss it using an audio program like Voki or a group vlog like the popular Flipgrid.

Middle School

By this point, students should have a solid understanding of most digital citizenship topics — cyberbullying, privacy, safety, and security. Reinforce how dependent they are on the Internet — and understanding its proper use — by having them take a poll on which geeky products they use daily. Embed the poll into the class blog or website (or shared digitally on the class screen). Students select all that apply to themselves. Then, share the poll results. Students will be surprised at the answers.

Alternatively, if social media is a hot issue in your school, have a debate about the pros and cons of its prominence in student and adult lives. Students can research the topic by talking to older siblings, other users, teachers, administrators, or even parents about how their experiences with social media. Tape the debate and upload the video to the class website or blog.

***

There you have it — eleven projects to authentically discuss digital citizenship. Spread these throughout the school year and tie them into core lessons so this discussion and its importance is never far from the students’ consciousness.

How do you reinforce understanding of this topic throughout the year?

— published first to TeachHUB

More on Digital Citizenship

Teaching Digital Rights and Responsibilities

A Digital Citizenship Curriculum

Building Digital Citizens–an online self-paced class

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

11 Projects to Teach Digital Citizenship published first on https://medium.com/@greatpricecourse

[statrano]

11 Projects to Teach Digital Citizenship

Education has changed. No longer is it contained within four classroom walls or the physical site of a school building. Students aren’t confined by the eight hours between school bells or the struggling budget of an underfunded program. Now, education can be found anywhere — teaming up with students in Kenya, Skyping with an author in Sweden, or chatting with an astrophysicist on the International Space Station. Students can use Google Earth to take a virtual tour of a zoo or a blog to collaborate on class research. Learning has no temporal or geographic borders and is available wherever students and teachers find an Internet connection.

This vast landscape of resources is offered digitally, freely (often), and equitably (hopefully), but to take that cerebral trek through the online world, children must know how to do it safely, securely, and responsibly. This used to mean limiting access to the Internet, blocking websites, and layering rules upon rules hoping (vainly) to discourage students from using an infinite and fascinating resource.

It didn’t work.

Best practices now suggest that instead of cocooning students, we teach them to be good digital citizens, confident and competent. Here are eleven projects to teach kids authentically, blended with your regular lessons, the often complicated topic of becoming good digital citizens, knowledgeable about their responsibilities in an Internet world.

Kindergarten

Kindergarteners should learn the essence of what it means to be a good digital citizen. Do this with a tool they all like — art. Have them draw a picture of themselves as a digital citizen. Discuss what this looks like. What would be the landscape around the student? Would s/he be holding anything?

But before they do this, help them understand that protecting their identity is critical. They can start by NOT making their picture look anything like themselves. Then, it’s called an avatar. Why is this important? Print the avatars and hang them around the classroom. Can students identify each other?

1st Grade

A critical skill for first graders is to not only understand the idea of a “digital citizen” but why it’s important to be one. The easiest way is to relate digital citizenship to citizenship in their own neighborhood. What morals and obligations are expected of them there? How does paying attention to their surroundings at the mall equate to paying attention on websites? How is taking a nap after a busy day similar to taking a break from iPad use (or another digital device)?  How does crossing the street in front of their house after looking both ways relate to cautiously using websites?

Again using a favorite tool, have students draw a picture of themselves being a good digital citizen as they use school-appropriate websites and apps. To draw this picture correctly requires an understanding of the virtual world. For those who struggle with it, have them share thoughts with a neighbor on where it doesn’t make sense.

2nd Grade

By 2nd grade, students should understand Internet nuances that occur daily in their lives such as accessing websites safely, participating in online discussions kindly, and protecting their privacy to the level that a 2nd grader can.  Have a discussion with students about passwords — they probably use them to log onto their computers and some websites or apps. Discuss common ones that their parents might use and they shouldn’t like Password, 123456, and monkey. Then use an online password generator (like Cloudwards or Password Generator) to come up with hard-to-crack passwords.

Another fun project is to have them then create an image cube (like the one available on Big Huge Labs) with six images they drew themselves that represent “Internet safety”. These are created in their favorite school drawing program and then uploaded to the Big Huge Labs template. Once all six are uploaded, print the cube, fold, and keep on student desks to remind them of Internet safety.

3rd Grade

In 3rd grade, students should become grounded in avoiding and/or dealing with cyberbullies. Chances are, they’ve already seen a few but didn’t quite understand their insidious danger. After a thorough discussion on this, have students create a comic in Storyboard That!,  ReadWriteThink, or another favorite webtool to share the story of a student being bullied online and how s/he deals with it.

As part of understanding cyberbullies, discuss the concept of “netiquette” — the etiquette of online behavior. Create a Padlet board and post it to the class blog or class Internet start page. There, students can post a “note” about how netiquette contributes to fighting cyberbullying.

4th grade

By this age, students should understand the importance of both digital rights and responsibilities when using the Internet. Break the class into two. Have one group create a Tagxedo (or another cloud tool like Wordle) with words related to “rights” while the second group creates one with words related to “responsibilities”.

5th grade

There are two projects great for this age group to reinforce the characteristics of the online world and interaction with it. First, create a Venn Diagram comparing neighborhood safety and Internet safety. What dangers lurk in each? Where do they overlap? This can tie into math class discussions on graphs and data.

Now that students have thought through these characteristics, have them write a blog post about what it means to be a citizen of the Internet. If you don’t have blogs, students can discuss it using an audio program like Voki or a group vlog like the popular Flipgrid.

Middle School

By this point, students should have a solid understanding of most digital citizenship topics — cyberbullying, privacy, safety, and security. Reinforce how dependent they are on the Internet — and understanding its proper use — by having them take a poll on which geeky products they use daily. Embed the poll into the class blog or website (or shared digitally on the class screen). Students select all that apply to themselves. Then, share the poll results. Students will be surprised at the answers.

Alternatively, if social media is a hot issue in your school, have a debate about the pros and cons of its prominence in student and adult lives. Students can research the topic by talking to older siblings, other users, teachers, administrators, or even parents about how their experiences with social media. Tape the debate and upload the video to the class website or blog.

***

There you have it — eleven projects to authentically discuss digital citizenship. Spread these throughout the school year and tie them into core lessons so this discussion and its importance is never far from the students’ consciousness.

How do you reinforce understanding of this topic throughout the year?

— published first to TeachHUB

More on Digital Citizenship

Teaching Digital Rights and Responsibilities

A Digital Citizenship Curriculum

Building Digital Citizens–an online self-paced class

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

11 Projects to Teach Digital Citizenship published first on https://seminarsacademy.tumblr.com/

[crazycreativescheerleadingcamp]

The Cheese Grates It: FML

Image Source:

wallpaperfo.com

The Cheese Grates It:

FML

  content warning:

suicide ideation

I honestly hate writing about myself, which is why I deviated from a recent prompt and made it an alternate reality of a character instead. However, at the moment I feel the need to share a few things about me and why I continue writing even though I long ago took the dream of becoming a renowned author out in the back alley and shot it.

I recently received criticism of my work being merely a conversation between two talking heads. Well, I guess that's what it is. Often when I'm doing my writing, I've finished working a shift delivering food in rush-hour traffic to nickel-and-diming customers who think that fifty cents is an appropriate tip. Hint: fifty cents was a crap tip back in 1986, when I was delivering pizzas. All told, I average about ten dollars an hour.

My financial situation is precarious. I need to set aside $1000 to get the water pump in the car I prefer to make deliveries in fixed. The whole time I'm driving I'm hoping that something doesn't happen to my personal car.

I know the conventional wisdom is "just get another job," but that isn't as simple as it sounds. This is literally about the only work I can do at this point.

My physical situation is far from good. I used to be able to work physically demanding jobs, but my diabetes has deteriorated to the point where I have problematic activity intolerance. When standing for long periods of time, I tend to become weak, dizzy, and confused.

"Aha, clerical work!" many of you will say.

Sadly, not so much. My brain is stupid, and when I work the kinds of hours where clerical work tends to be done, I become depressed to the point of non-functional. I've tried to do this numerous times in my rather long life, and the result has always been the same. Clearly, I was not made for life on this planet.

A year ago, I lost a reasonably well-paying job where I was making approximately $40,000 a year. I was working as a homecare nurse. My diabetes was getting worse and I was very sick with a severe respiratory infection. The company reasoned that I could continue working because the patient I was working with was the one I'd contracted the infection from, therefore, they believed, I couldn't re-infect him.

I was fired from that job because I fell asleep during my shift. This was not a light drowse where one wakes when one's chin contacts their chest. This was a deep, dark, dreamless, sleep-of-the-dead kind of sleep. There is a pretty good likelihood that I had a TIA at that point. I don't remember falling asleep, but I was asleep for about 20 minutes. I woke to see the patient's father sitting on the patient's bed, glaring at me. I didn't hear him come downstairs or into the room. I left and was fired the next day.

I worked briefly for another homecare agency with a patient I'd worked with previously. This patient ended up in the hospital and never came out. The agency never found me another case. At that point, I tried working as a rideshare driver. An idiot stoner kid backed into the rental car I was using. Lyft took so long to resolve the claim that I wasn't able to drive for a month. The rental car agency never reimbursed me for the unused week on the vehicle. I was out $1000.

I tried going back into long-term care, but found myself physically unable to keep up with the demands of the job. I became weak and confused when my blood sugar dropped and I was unable to take a break. Long-term care does not tend to allow for breaks for its employees. 

I then tried working for yet another homecare agency and discovered that I could no longer handle the physically demanding part of the job.

I worked delivering groceries for a while and ended up with a permanent injury to the median nerve in my left arm. This service promised delivery within the hour. Instead, I would often be greeted by an angry customer demanding to know why their order was three hours late. Customer service never contacted them. They let the driver deal with the unhappy customer. I had severe calf cramps because of having to climb stairs multiple times during the shift. The injury to my arm came about because of having to carry heavy loads throughout the shift. There is now permanent numbness in my left hand. At least I no longer endure agonizing pain in my left upper arm, which I did for about a month.

My anxiety levels are through the roof. I browbeat myself into going to work. Most days I wish I'd just die. Conversely, I have night terrors where I wake up with my heart pounding, thinking "please don't let me die like this."

Antidepressants, the darlings of the psych industry, don't work on me. They make me manic and psychotic. Benzodiazepenes, another darling of the psych industry, have a paradoxical effect. They tend to make my heart race and to cause panic attacks. The exceptions are Xanax, which has a heavy sedative effect and then makes me suicidal, and Valium, which makes me stupid. I mean really stupid, like two plus two equals three or something stupid. 

To counter my raging insomnia, I take a low dose of thc plus cbd. It works better than Valium (see thick as a brick stupid) and better than drugs such as Ambien and Lunesta, which cause me to sleepwalk and do things like pee on my car tire at 3 AM. I was given a medical marijuana card for the horrifying pain in my arm and to help with my glaucoma. What I use is actually recreational edibles and tea, which has a lesser potency than medical grade marijuana. It doesn't get me high. It acts as a mild sedative and has none of the crap side effects of pharmaceutical medications. However, there are certain jobs I can't even think of applying for at this point because of my use of a very low dose of thc for a medical problem. They'd be fine with it if I were fucking my head with Ambien, which makes me do weird shit and wake up tired, but a tiny amount of THC makes me a non-functional hop-head, apparently.

This was my response to the person who decried my writing as being merely a conversation between a pair of talking heads:

  I take it from your other criticisms that "quite interesting" means "I hate it." That's cool and all. The words weren't randomly bolded. It was to keep up with the Wordle prompt, to remember that we had used the words. Honestly, I'm kind of brain damaged and stupid. I work at a menial job earning about minimum wage. I write when I can if for no other reason than to keep some aspect of what I believe myself to truly be alive. With a little help from my friends I am able to do this. Maybe I'm fated to just be a giant talking head, much like the Face of Boe in Dr. Who. Sorry my work didn't meet your exacting standards. I probably won't participate in this particular prompt again. Really, the only reason I do is as an exercise in constraining my word count because I tend to be overly verbose in my so-called writing.

Note: the bolded words were my bad. I forgot that most people on the Weekend Writing Warriors prompt would not also be using the Wordle prompt.

Honestly, the shitty writing would also be my bad. Gem and Tempest aren't to blame. They were only trying to support me.

The truth is, I feel like killing myself most of the time and already would have if it weren't for the fact that my son seems to still need my help. Here are some things I don't need to hear regarding that statement:

"Go to the emergency room."

If I went to the emergency room every time I experienced suicide ideation, I'd have to live there.

"Get counseling."

It doesn't work. I could probably benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy, but county mental health doesn't tend to provide that. County mental health gives you counselors who frustrate you to no end because they are used to dealing with people who have severe psychosis. I only have psychosis when I take antidepressants or prescription pain medications. County mental health counselors are no help to people who see the reality around them all too clearly and know there's nothing they can do to extract themselves from the steaming pile of suck that is reality. So, they write stories involving talking heads because it soothes them for a moment to do so.

"Get on medication."

See "that shit makes me manic and psychotic." Except for Prozac, which left me emotionally flatlined, staring at my arm, and thinking to myself "maybe I should cut my arm to see if I can still feel anything." This wasn't the normal, self-loathing drive to self-injure that I've dealt with all my life. This was a case of wondering if I could still feel anything at all.

Sorry, folks. Pat answers don't work on me. I'm special like that.

Actually, I'm not particularly special. There are a lot of people that the pat answers don't work for.

I have a lot of thoughts about how society could improve to make sure everyone has a decent quality of life. One of them involves not treating the working class like shit. Most people in the working class aren't "less intelligent" or even less educated than people in white collar jobs, and, even if they were, why should they be treated like shit?

We need universal health care so people like me can stop playing the shitty balancing game of having to keep my earnings under $800 a month so I don't lose Medicaid. 

We need a universal stipend. The idea that people would stop working if they were receiving a stipend is erroneous. Most people want to work in some capacity.

In any case, I probably won't officially participate in the Weekend Writing Warriors prompt again. It seems to be a place that isn't for people like me: people for whom writing is a survival tool.

And now, I guess I'll get ready to get out there and get nickel-and-dimed to death once again. Perhaps there will be more from the talking heads who are my characters later. Color yourself oh so lucky.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

[digitalsushma007]

Wordle for kids are amazing, right? The word game Wordle has been ingrained in adult culture and is now compared to a habit that one unintentionally adopts.

[percy-x-luke]

Float (2748 words) by robindrake93 Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Luke Castellan/Percy Jackson Characters: Luke Castellan, Percy Jackson Additional Tags: POV Third Person, One Shot, Living Together, Kidnapped Percy Jackson, Boys Kissing, Kid Fic, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Selectively Mute Percy Jackson, Kidnapping Series: Part 16 of Wordle Answers As Writing Prompts Summary: Once upon a time, Luke kidnapped Percy. But it was for the best.

[evnoweb]

11 Back-to-school Activities for the First Month of School

A new school year is a fresh start. For students, that means a different teacher and new classmates. For teachers, it’s another chance to make an impact on the lives of kids, turn them into life-long learners or at least let them experience the joy of learning.

In the chaos of getting ready for that all-important first day, it’s tempting to “do things as they’ve always been done” — like lectures, quizzes, student plays, and posters — but more and more teachers want to shake things up by adding innovative activities that differentiate for student learning styles while creatively accomplishing classroom goals.

Here are eleven such activities I’ve collected from colleagues using transformative tools that optimize learning while making students active participants in expected learning outcomes:

Class management

Use the webtool Too Noisy for the first month of class to show students how loud the class can get.  Demonstrate how it works by showing that the louder classroom sounds are, the more the needle moves into the red. After that, project it onto the class screen occasionally throughout the day when voices and activity exceed what is best for learning.  Let students notice the meter and then self-correct.

This tool is intuitive, easy to use, and is available on mobile devices only. A good alternative if you don’t have the ability to project your iPad to the class screen: Bouncy Balls.

Class Rules

Post a draft of class rules on the wall based on those followed last year. Ask students for suggestions. As they offer ideas, jot them down on the list. When everyone is done, post the edited list in place of the draft. Now, everyone is a stakeholder in classroom management.

Create a timeline of class events

Post a timeline of class events high on the classroom wall. Start it the first day with “School begins” and end it the last day with “Summer vacation!” Add highlights of what occurred during the year. This can include field trips, guest speakers, school events, vacations, awards, and even birthdays. Have students suggest additions that reflect what was important to them during the school year.

This is a work-in-progress that will take just a few minutes each month to keep up-to-date but won’t be completed until the last day of school.

Digital Citizen

Have each student take a full-body picture of themselves (or take one of a classmate on the class iPads or Surface Pros). Using the digital device’s annotation tool or embedding the picture in a draw program that allows for annotations, have students add all the digital devices they use during the week. This includes iPads, computers, digital games, Wii, phones, and more. When each student is done, print these out and post them on the walls or share on the class photo gallery.

Evidence Board

Create an Evidence Board in a corner of your classroom to share evidence that what students learn in school helps them in the rest of their lives. It will include events like “Made change at the store”, “Showed my sister how to change fonts in Word,” and “Talked to Gramma about Jane Eyre”.

Spend five minutes a week allowing students to share their experiences and then post a badge to the Evidence Board testifying to that.

QR Codes

Post a variety of QR Codes around the classroom. These will include extra credit opportunities, skip a homework, skip classwork, and other prizes that resonate with your students. Kids decode them with their QR reader and claim the prize. Once it’s claimed, no one else can use it.

Round Robin

Working in groups of five, each student will write five parts of a story, one for each classmate. They start by writing an introduction to their story and then move to the digital device of another person in their group. There, they write Part two. That done, they move on to another digital device and write Part three, and so on. Each student will get about three minutes to add the next part to the story before moving on. Students understand that each story must end with five entries.

Here’s the breakdown of each entry:

First:  Introduce the story and characters.

Second:  Describe the setting.

Third:  Tell about the problem characters face. 

Fourth: Tell how the characters solve the problem. 

Fifth: Wrap everything up.

Students use appropriate writing and language skills and can correct the grammar and spelling of group members if they complete their section early. Use this as a formative assessment to gauge what students remember from last year’s literacy and where to start this year’s lesson.

Virtual Collaborative Board

Students share ideas collaboratively on a virtual board called Padlet. You might ask them to name a book they read over the summer, complete a warm-up or exit ticket, organize ideas into categories, sign up for something during the month, or anything else. You can share out the Padlet link with students or embed the board into the class website. Using it requires no log-in or account (for students). All they do is double-click the board and add their ideas.

You might use Padlet to collect suggestions for the class rules, too.

Click to view slideshow.

Where is everything?

Run a class scavenger hunt created in Goose Chase (or a similar program) to find all the important pieces of the classroom. This might include the Inbox for homework, the printer, the class set of computers, class rules, calendar, and more. Or, use QR codes that have answers to ten questions about the students’ new classroom (or about their teacher). Students decode the QR code and add the answer to a form with all the questions. When done, they can win a prize if that fits your school culture.

Who am I? I

Students create a word cloud (using Wordle, WordArt, or Google Doc’s dedicated word cloud creator) of 100 words that describe them. Print this and post it to the class windows to share with visitors.

Who am I? II

Students write a story in 140 characters about themselves and post it to the class Twitter account.

***

Whatever you do, make it a dynamic example of what is in store for students this school year. Leave them energized, excited, and ready to participate in a year’s worth of learning.

–published first on TeachHUB

More Back to School:

15 Back-to-School Posts

3 Organizational Apps to Start the School Year

5 Ways to Involve Parents in Your Class

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, a weekly contributor to TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

11 Back-to-school Activities for the First Month of School published first on https://medium.com/@DigitalDLCourse

[endevia]

11 Back-to-school Activities for the First Month of School

A new school year is a fresh start. For students, that means a different teacher and new classmates. For teachers, it’s another chance to make an impact on the lives of kids, turn them into life-long learners or at least let them experience the joy of learning.

In the chaos of getting ready for that all-important first day, it’s tempting to “do things as they’ve always been done” — like lectures, quizzes, student plays, and posters — but more and more teachers want to shake things up by adding innovative activities that differentiate for student learning styles while creatively accomplishing classroom goals.

Here are eleven such activities I’ve collected from colleagues using transformative tools that optimize learning while making students active participants in expected learning outcomes:

Class management

Use the webtool Too Noisy for the first month of class to show students how loud the class can get.  Demonstrate how it works by showing that the louder classroom sounds are, the more the needle moves into the red. After that, project it onto the class screen occasionally throughout the day when voices and activity exceed what is best for learning.  Let students notice the meter and then self-correct.

This tool is intuitive, easy to use, and is available on mobile devices only. A good alternative if you don’t have the ability to project your iPad to the class screen: Bouncy Balls.

Class Rules

Post a draft of class rules on the wall based on those followed last year. Ask students for suggestions. As they offer ideas, jot them down on the list. When everyone is done, post the edited list in place of the draft. Now, everyone is a stakeholder in classroom management.

Create a timeline of class events

Post a timeline of class events high on the classroom wall. Start it the first day with “School begins” and end it the last day with “Summer vacation!” Add highlights of what occurred during the year. This can include field trips, guest speakers, school events, vacations, awards, and even birthdays. Have students suggest additions that reflect what was important to them during the school year.

This is a work-in-progress that will take just a few minutes each month to keep up-to-date but won’t be completed until the last day of school.

Digital Citizen

Have each student take a full-body picture of themselves (or take one of a classmate on the class iPads or Surface Pros). Using the digital device’s annotation tool or embedding the picture in a draw program that allows for annotations, have students add all the digital devices they use during the week. This includes iPads, computers, digital games, Wii, phones, and more. When each student is done, print these out and post them on the walls or share on the class photo gallery.

Evidence Board

Create an Evidence Board in a corner of your classroom to share evidence that what students learn in school helps them in the rest of their lives. It will include events like “Made change at the store”, “Showed my sister how to change fonts in Word,” and “Talked to Gramma about Jane Eyre”.

Spend five minutes a week allowing students to share their experiences and then post a badge to the Evidence Board testifying to that.

QR Codes

Post a variety of QR Codes around the classroom. These will include extra credit opportunities, skip a homework, skip classwork, and other prizes that resonate with your students. Kids decode them with their QR reader and claim the prize. Once it’s claimed, no one else can use it.

Round Robin

Working in groups of five, each student will write five parts of a story, one for each classmate. They start by writing an introduction to their story and then move to the digital device of another person in their group. There, they write Part two. That done, they move on to another digital device and write Part three, and so on. Each student will get about three minutes to add the next part to the story before moving on. Students understand that each story must end with five entries.

Here’s the breakdown of each entry:

First:  Introduce the story and characters.

Second:  Describe the setting.

Third:  Tell about the problem characters face. 

Fourth: Tell how the characters solve the problem. 

Fifth: Wrap everything up.

Students use appropriate writing and language skills and can correct the grammar and spelling of group members if they complete their section early. Use this as a formative assessment to gauge what students remember from last year’s literacy and where to start this year’s lesson.

Virtual Collaborative Board

Students share ideas collaboratively on a virtual board called Padlet. You might ask them to name a book they read over the summer, complete a warm-up or exit ticket, organize ideas into categories, sign up for something during the month, or anything else. You can share out the Padlet link with students or embed the board into the class website. Using it requires no log-in or account (for students). All they do is double-click the board and add their ideas.

You might use Padlet to collect suggestions for the class rules, too.

Click to view slideshow.

Where is everything?

Run a class scavenger hunt created in Goose Chase (or a similar program) to find all the important pieces of the classroom. This might include the Inbox for homework, the printer, the class set of computers, class rules, calendar, and more. Or, use QR codes that have answers to ten questions about the students’ new classroom (or about their teacher). Students decode the QR code and add the answer to a form with all the questions. When done, they can win a prize if that fits your school culture.

Who am I? I

Students create a word cloud (using Wordle, WordArt, or Google Doc’s dedicated word cloud creator) of 100 words that describe them. Print this and post it to the class windows to share with visitors.

Who am I? II

Students write a story in 140 characters about themselves and post it to the class Twitter account.

***

Whatever you do, make it a dynamic example of what is in store for students this school year. Leave them energized, excited, and ready to participate in a year’s worth of learning.

–published first on TeachHUB

More Back to School:

15 Back-to-School Posts

3 Organizational Apps to Start the School Year

5 Ways to Involve Parents in Your Class

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, a weekly contributor to TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

11 Back-to-school Activities for the First Month of School published first on https://medium.com/@greatpricecourse

[corpasa]

11 Back-to-school Activities for the First Month of School

A new school year is a fresh start. For students, that means a different teacher and new classmates. For teachers, it’s another chance to make an impact on the lives of kids, turn them into life-long learners or at least let them experience the joy of learning.

In the chaos of getting ready for that all-important first day, it’s tempting to “do things as they’ve always been done” — like lectures, quizzes, student plays, and posters — but more and more teachers want to shake things up by adding innovative activities that differentiate for student learning styles while creatively accomplishing classroom goals.

Here are eleven such activities I’ve collected from colleagues using transformative tools that optimize learning while making students active participants in expected learning outcomes:

Class management

Use the webtool Too Noisy for the first month of class to show students how loud the class can get.  Demonstrate how it works by showing that the louder classroom sounds are, the more the needle moves into the red. After that, project it onto the class screen occasionally throughout the day when voices and activity exceed what is best for learning.  Let students notice the meter and then self-correct.

This tool is intuitive, easy to use, and is available on mobile devices only. A good alternative if you don’t have the ability to project your iPad to the class screen: Bouncy Balls.

Class Rules

Post a draft of class rules on the wall based on those followed last year. Ask students for suggestions. As they offer ideas, jot them down on the list. When everyone is done, post the edited list in place of the draft. Now, everyone is a stakeholder in classroom management.

Create a timeline of class events

Post a timeline of class events high on the classroom wall. Start it the first day with “School begins” and end it the last day with “Summer vacation!” Add highlights of what occurred during the year. This can include field trips, guest speakers, school events, vacations, awards, and even birthdays. Have students suggest additions that reflect what was important to them during the school year.

This is a work-in-progress that will take just a few minutes each month to keep up-to-date but won’t be completed until the last day of school.

Digital Citizen

Have each student take a full-body picture of themselves (or take one of a classmate on the class iPads or Surface Pros). Using the digital device’s annotation tool or embedding the picture in a draw program that allows for annotations, have students add all the digital devices they use during the week. This includes iPads, computers, digital games, Wii, phones, and more. When each student is done, print these out and post them on the walls or share on the class photo gallery.

Evidence Board

Create an Evidence Board in a corner of your classroom to share evidence that what students learn in school helps them in the rest of their lives. It will include events like “Made change at the store”, “Showed my sister how to change fonts in Word,” and “Talked to Gramma about Jane Eyre”.

Spend five minutes a week allowing students to share their experiences and then post a badge to the Evidence Board testifying to that.

QR Codes

Post a variety of QR Codes around the classroom. These will include extra credit opportunities, skip a homework, skip classwork, and other prizes that resonate with your students. Kids decode them with their QR reader and claim the prize. Once it’s claimed, no one else can use it.

Round Robin

Working in groups of five, each student will write five parts of a story, one for each classmate. They start by writing an introduction to their story and then move to the digital device of another person in their group. There, they write Part two. That done, they move on to another digital device and write Part three, and so on. Each student will get about three minutes to add the next part to the story before moving on. Students understand that each story must end with five entries.

Here’s the breakdown of each entry:

First:  Introduce the story and characters.

Second:  Describe the setting.

Third:  Tell about the problem characters face. 

Fourth: Tell how the characters solve the problem. 

Fifth: Wrap everything up.

Students use appropriate writing and language skills and can correct the grammar and spelling of group members if they complete their section early. Use this as a formative assessment to gauge what students remember from last year’s literacy and where to start this year’s lesson.

Virtual Collaborative Board

Students share ideas collaboratively on a virtual board called Padlet. You might ask them to name a book they read over the summer, complete a warm-up or exit ticket, organize ideas into categories, sign up for something during the month, or anything else. You can share out the Padlet link with students or embed the board into the class website. Using it requires no log-in or account (for students). All they do is double-click the board and add their ideas.

You might use Padlet to collect suggestions for the class rules, too.

Click to view slideshow.

Where is everything?

Run a class scavenger hunt created in Goose Chase (or a similar program) to find all the important pieces of the classroom. This might include the Inbox for homework, the printer, the class set of computers, class rules, calendar, and more. Or, use QR codes that have answers to ten questions about the students’ new classroom (or about their teacher). Students decode the QR code and add the answer to a form with all the questions. When done, they can win a prize if that fits your school culture.

Who am I? I

Students create a word cloud (using Wordle, WordArt, or Google Doc’s dedicated word cloud creator) of 100 words that describe them. Print this and post it to the class windows to share with visitors.

Who am I? II

Students write a story in 140 characters about themselves and post it to the class Twitter account.

***

Whatever you do, make it a dynamic example of what is in store for students this school year. Leave them energized, excited, and ready to participate in a year’s worth of learning.

–published first on TeachHUB

More Back to School:

15 Back-to-School Posts

3 Organizational Apps to Start the School Year

5 Ways to Involve Parents in Your Class

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, a weekly contributor to TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

11 Back-to-school Activities for the First Month of School published first on https://medium.com/@DLBusinessNow