Remind 101: Quick and easy student reminders

Remind101 is a great free tool for communicating with students and parents.   Schedule and send SMS text messages and emails directly from your computer.  Remind101 is safe in that it keeps student and teacher phone numbers private. Students and parents can join simply by sending a text message, no computer needed.  There is also the option of subscribing to messages via email.  Create up to 10 separate classes, great for use with clubs too!

It is simple to create a free account, print out instructions for your class, and start sending out reminders... you can even schedule reminders to be sent at a future time.

QR Codes review game

Using QR Codes (those little black and white symbols popping up everywhere) and Google Presentations I was able to create a quick, fun, outdoor review game for my class yesterday.  All you need is about 1/2 your students to have smart phone (in my class about 80% did), a little creativity, and some good weather. Sure, you can do this inside too, but it was great to be outside without a jacket in March!

Step 1: Create your questions.

To start you need to create your questions online somewhere. QR Codes can show plain text, so if your questions are simple you can just type them into the QR Code generator. I wanted to include graphs and pictures, so I decided to use a Google Presentation that I had made public and published to the web. I then grabbed the published URL to use for my QR codes.  With the Google Presentation I had the added benefit that I could include multiple, related questions from one QR code.  Example Question

Step 2: Generate your QR Codes. 

I use Kaywa QR Code generator, but there are lots of other free online generators that allow you to download and print the code. 

Step 3: Print out your QR Codes and post them around.

We've been enjoying some unseasonably warm weather so I took my students out into the courtyard and hung the codes up around randomly. Of course, you could do this in a classroom, but with a larger space and the fresh air it made it more fun!

Step 4: Get to answering questions.

I had the students download a free QR reader of their choice (they are available both for Android and iPhone), pair up with someone else, grab a notebook and start scanning.  They answered the questions in their notebook. 

Although the "game" really was nothing more than a lot of questions that they had to answer, the students were much more engaged then they would have been with just a sheet of review questions to answer because they were able to have a little fun with it.  I also threw in a couple of QR Codes with "silly" links to funny videos, etc. just to keep things interesting. 

There are lots of ways that this can be adapted quickly and easily in just about any classroom. 

e-Pub Bud - Free online E-Pub book creator

Many schools are getting iPads in their classrooms today, and here is another great way to use them. Using E-Pub Bud students can easily create interactive digital books using their own pictures, artwork, and words.  E-Pub Bud allows you to upload content and convert it to e-Pub format or create your content directly on the site. You can even incorporate sound (imagine students reading their own book) and video.  The free books you create can be downloaded or shared online.  Teachers could also use this free tool to create their own books for class.

e-Pubs are a digital book format that allows you to embed images, movies, and sound. You can play e-Pubs on your Mac or PC using software like Adobe Digital Editions, but they were really meant to be read on a tablet device. E-Pubs in your i-Tunes library can be directly synced to your iPad, for Kindle Fire, you will need to use a converter like Calibre (See directions here)

Here are a few public examples from ePub Bud

How My Implant Changed Me by Aidan - read the free ebook now from ePub Bud!

Super Teacher Tools

I stumbled upon a very simple, easy to use website the other day, and thought I should share it with our staff.

Super Teacher Tools has a variety of free, online tools to use in your classroom. The one that I have been using is the Group Maker.

Group Maker makes it simple to import your class list and then general random groups of any size you want. It even saves your classes for your future group creation needs. This free tool is a real simple time saver.  Once you create a class, they will email you a link to your class so you can easily re-group the class in the future. The online tool creates simple chart that you can save or print out.