Reeve EdTech Tips

Just a quick one today: a  new trick for an old technique: making note cards. Sometimes it is appropriate for your students to make  a set of note cards .The classic "old-school" example is teaching students to write  research papers : they would put  sources, quotes, and other important info  on index cards, and could then  sort the cards  afterward to organize the sections of their paper. Even for writing without research source, some teachers would have students make note cards to help  organize content paragraphs  of a longer piece of writing. Note cards are great for encouraging thoughtful planning before you start "just writing stuff down" in your document. ​"Is this enough note cards for my 3 paragraph essay?" The  biggest advantage  of note cards, of course, is their  ease of re-ordering . You can just flip through the cards around and keep re-arranging until you are happy with their sequence. ...

BYOD is not just about students carrying laptops and tablets. BYOD allows us to rethink the power of having a tiny, portable computer that is constantly connected to the internet. There are so many ways that teachers can use smartphones to enhance their lessons and curriculum. Sure, you  wouldn't  want to type a Master’s thesis on a smartphone, but you can certainly author a few basic paragraphs to begin your rough draft. Below is a list of middle school and high school activities that you can use in your classroom that work well with smartphone technology. Basic research Internet scavenger hunt : Students use basic Google searches to find information. “Name 2 US presidents who were unmarried while in office.” Givens in word problems : Students look up missing parameters in word problems. “Calculate the momentum of a baseball thrown at the speed of the world’s fastest pitch.” Fact checking : During class, students can be responsible for finding/verifyin...

Imagine this scenario in Mr. Tek's history class, in which students write a thesis paragraph about whether or not Alexander the Great was really "great." For homework, students  create a Google Document , and  write a paragraph  with a strong thesis statement. In class the next day, Mr. Tek  assigns peer pairs , telling each student who will be peer reviewing their paragraph. Students open the paragraphs on their devices, and  share the documents  with their partners  (using the blue " Share " button). Students also  share the documents with Mr. Tek .  [For this activity, the Sharing permission is set to "Can comment," so that peers can make comments with changing the text of the document.] Students  comment  on each others' paragraphs, including both positive feedback and constructive criticism. Students then return to their own paragraphs, and  make changes  based on their reviewers' comments. That ev...