As usual, the TCEA annual conference was a great week full of learning! Here are a few of my favorite finds:
Newsela – This website provides daily news articles with a twist…the teacher or reader can adjust the article to one of five different reading levels with the click of a button. This means that everyone gets the content at an appropriate level. Teachers can also create a class account in order to gain more features. With a class account, teachers have the ability to assign articles and their corresponding quiz and/or open ended writing prompt to students. There is also Newsela for Elementary.
QBall – A few of the presenters had a new way to interact with session participants. The QBall is a small, throwable, squishy ball that’s actually a wireless microphone. Presenters would toss the ball out in the crowd for people to answer questions and provide feedback and then toss to the next participant. It was FUN! The ball was originally created for teachers as a fun, interactive way to engage students in the classroom, but it can definitely be a fun addition to faculty meetings!
Formative - Formative is a formative assessment tool that will work on any device. Teachers can build content for an assessment or homework. Much like other formative assessment tools, there are a variety of question types. However, Formative provides a "show your work" feature where students can draw their responses. As the teacher, you can actually see the students' "show your work" responses in real time, even before they submit. Another unique feature of Formative is that teachers can upload PDF, Word, or Google Doc and add content and/or questions to the file. Results can be exported as an Excel file.
Even as an attendee of the conference, it's impossible to attend every session. Luckily, TCEA has provided links to session handouts. Click here to check them out.
No comments:
Post a Comment