Tech Tuesdays

Tech Tuesdays, Shona, it's Friday. 🙈 I know, I'm late, I'm sorry! Life happened this week, but here is what Tech Tuesday is all about.  It is an informal meeting among colleagues in the primary building to share technology that we use in our classroom. Tech that others might not know about or realize they can use with their students. In our building we refer to primary as PK - 3rd grade. 

I was one of those lucky teachers who got a job right after I applied and it just so happened it was where I student taught. My cooperating teacher was also the lead on the tech team, and you can say I dove in head first! When I first started teaching and even while I was student-teaching, teachers met every Thursday to discuss the apps we were using in our classrooms and new/exciting things we were doing, we called it "Appy Hour." Now we're doing the same thing on Tuesdays. Anyway the first two items on the block are Classroom Screen and Blooket. I will be completely honest, until a week ago, I had never heard of Classroom Screen and now I'm wondering how I survived without it! Ok, maybe not that drastic, but it's a good one, I promise!

Classroom Screen is the winner take all of screens.  Here is the one I used during math yesterday. The kids were working independently on a math page, then they could go to the library and when they came back they could work on IXL. I had five students gone yesterday, so I only had 13 there, we did some group work earlier in the day and I used the widget to create groups.   

Top left: Group Work widget. I input my students names and selected how many groups I needed and it randomly placed students into groups.  

Top Middle: Timer, just select the time you need it set for and push play.

Middle: This is the list of activities they were to do in the order of completion. This helps me not having to repeat myself over and over again. They can look at the board and see what they need to do next.

Top Right: This tells the kids what their voice level should be. 

Bottom Right: Volume meter. You can set how high you want to the volume to be at a max, then allow the program to access your microphone. If the room volume meets or exceeds what you set it at, it will ding to signify it is too loud in the room.

Bottom Middle: Tool bar. See next image...

The tool bar. This is your friend.

 

You can change the background, take a class poll, if you click on the randomizer you can input your class list and it will randomly pick a name for you and remove the name from the list (no more drawing sticks), sound level, imgae, work symbols - silent, whisper, ask a neighbor and group work, traffic light, timetable - you can input your schedule for the day with timers to let you know when to switch, timer, clock, and "more."

And there is so much more, indeed!

We'll start at the top left and work left to right, top to bottom. I previously mentioned the group maker, this is where you can find it. The next option is "video," if you select this widget, then you can input a URL to a video. 

Dice is next. If you click this widget, then select the sprocket for settings you can adjust what kind of dice you want to have on this menu. 

The webcam widget rounds out the top row. Next is the visual timer, it is just like the other timer, but has a different look to it. The calendar is next with the event countdown next. You can insert an event and, it will show you how long until the event. Have a class party coming up? This will count down the days, hours and minutes until the event arrives! The last widget in the second row is a stop watch.

The third row begins with the drawing widget. Should you choose this widget, you will see a white space on your screen and you can draw on it. For those of you forty-somethings, think of the "Paint" on the old PCs you had in high school, that is what I would compare it to! The next widget is "embed" where you can embed HTML code. After that is a QR code widget where you insert text or a URL and the widget will create a QR code for you to scan with your camera app. The last option is hyperlink, where you insert your URL and it will create a button for you to click on to take you where want to go.  Stickers is next, and it is exactly what you think it would be, digital stickers to decorate your classroom screen. The last option might be my favorite, the scoreboard. 

How many times do we play games in the classroom and not have a handy way to keep score? Problem solved.   First, you can select how many teams, then you can select which kind of score board you would like to use. 

Another feature that I love is the pages. You can create pages to flip through and have different features on each page. 

The only drawback to the free version is you can  not save your screens. They do have a paid version for $30/year. I use the free version, and it works just fine for me! 

I know this was like the Cliff's Notes version of Classroom Screen, but I hope you explore it and give it a chance.  See what works for you and your classroom, and then make your screen your own! 

Next week, we'll discuss Blooket, and I'm shooting for a post on Tuesday evening, keeping with the Tech Tuesday theme. See you next week, until then, keep exploring and drop me a note if there is something you'd like for me to check out! 🤍

-SW