Mrs. Tech

Black History Month (February) is worth recognizing in any classroom because of the significance that many African American men and women have had on our country over the years. It is also important for our students to discuss how the course of history has changed because these strong men and women stood up for what they believed in and made a difference in the world around them. There are many websites that talk about Black History month that would be great to use in your classroom with your students. Some of these websites are: Speech Videos & Current Events Book recommendations  and video interviews with authors  Timelines, Facts, and Issues Readers Theater Scripts, Lesson Plans, and more PBS book recommendations by grade level  Interactive Activity talking about African Americans Martin Luther King "I Have a Dream" Speech  Black History Month Articles If you are looking for some people to mention as you discuss Black History month, have stud

Doodle Buddy is basically just a doodling app. I first came across is when Kami from teachingwithAppitude shared about her students drawing Santa faces on themselves with the app! I loved the idea and had immediately added it to my lesson plans. Exploring Doodle Buddy a little more, I found even more features to love. First of all, you can add cute little emojis to your drawings (and whose kids don't LOVE emojis). Also, I liked that you can add backgrounds to Doodle Buddy. Some of the templates include hangman, tic-tac-toe, dots and a few mazes. My students love to use these to complete these games virtually. There are also shapes & images that you can add to the drawing as needed. Obviously, there are a million colors and lots of different sizes and styles of pens that you can use for the actual doodling part. My one complaint about Doodle Buddy is that if you shake it, it clears the whole screen. So encourage your students to draw with the iPad flat on the table

Do you ever just sit there mesmerized at those texting conversation stories that you see on Facebook? My husband absolutely loves them and it cracks me up.  One day, I was sitting there watching one as he laughed and had a thought that these could be really fun to let my students create. The possibilities are endless - book character conversations, historical accounts, spelling words, create-your-own story, writing prompts, or reteaching lessons. The app is free & very user friendly. I love that you can save the conversations as videos so that we can easily share them with the class or send them to me. My students love to use it and I love that they are doing something academic, while they are convinced that they are just having fun! Happy Texting, Hilary 

Martin Luther King Jr. is definitely a man worth discussing. Your students know that we get out of school for a day because of him, but do they know anything more than that? Do they know the freedoms that he fought for? I compiled a list of some great resources to use when teaching about MLK Jr. These are all kid-friendly websites and most of them are free of any ads.  Do you teach about Martin Luther King Jr. each year around this time?  Dream Big, - Mrs. Tech Lessons on Tolerance Lessons on Respect Seattle Times Tribute Information Page MLK Jr. Coloring Pages I Have a Dream Too! Speech  (A definite win in my class!) MLK Jr. Wordsearch The Meaning of the King Holiday (written by his wife) Full MLK Jr. Lesson for Grades 3-5   and Grades K-2 MLK Jr. Videos & Teacher Guides for Grades 6-8 Bonus: QR Codes for Videos on MLK Jr. which are part of my MLK Jr. Webquest ! *Originally published 1/14/16 on MrsTechs Blog

How many of you grew up traveling? Did you fly or drive? Having 3 siblings, we drove almost everywhere, but we also did a ton of traveling. My dad is a pharmacist, so every year for the summer, he would take 1.5 - 2 weeks of his vacation time and travel some place new. (My mom is a teacher so she got summers off with us :} ) One year we went to the Grand Canyon, while another we went to Washington DC. We pulled our Coleman pop up camper with us everywhere behind our Dodge Durango and just enjoyed being together as a family.  I have so many great memories of those trips, but some of our kids don't have them or we are studying places that you can't see out of the back of that Dodge Durango. This is where Maps comes into play. Let your students explore all that is out there with the use of Maps. They even offer flyover tours in big cities like Paris & New York City. You can also put in an address or point of interest and go anywhere in the world.  Where are you re

I LOVE PicCollage and I love all of the different ways that I can use it in my classroom. One of the ways that I am using it this week is to showcase student's Christmas break. It is SO easy with Apple Classroom to share pictures with students, and for them to share their work with me. Here are a few of the pages that I've received. I have this simple template for download in my TpT store for FREE ! It is a great intro activity for your first day back. You could also review iPad rules before completing this. Once I had all of my students submissions, I put them into a slideshow (which you can easily do straight from your iPad or with Google Slides/PowerPoint) and showcased them the next morning so that all the students could hear about each other Christmas Breaks. This template is made to be used with PicCollage, but it also comes in a PDF format that you can print and distribute to your students. If you don't know how to use PicCollage, check out my how to res

I started looking into the Google Educator Certification after one of my teacher buddies told me about it. I was fascinated by how seemingly simple it was to prepare for it and the low cost to take the test. I am no Google expert, but I wanted to share my experience with you. I started with taking the Google Certified Educator Level 1 Test. When you sign in with your Google Account, you have access to hours of training and self-check quizzes that you can take to make sure that you understood the content. You can take them as many times as you'd like, and I encourage you to take them all until you get a 100% so that you can go back and use them to study. There are paragraphs and videos and Google resources for you to use to help you learn everything that you need to know. The Google site states that "[t] his exam certifies educators who have the fundamental skills for implementing Google for Education tools in the classroom."  The Level 1 Certification test costs $10