Science Education Idea Exchange

This is another one of those posts that I'm not sure why I have not written about it before! As a new teacher, I did not have a PLC for the first few years. There were some ideas I was able to borrow from teachers in my building, but I had to create my curriculum. That's where Pinterest became a huge time saver! How it works: Add the Chrome extension - as long as a picture is on the website you would like to save, you can create a brand-new pin. Download the app to your phone- sift through already created pins when you have downtime to get inspired. Use the website - You can create new pins like you would with a browser extension and find existing pins. It's easier to organize your pins, send pins, and add collaborators on the website (in my opinion). You can check out my science board here for some ideas I love and have been inspired by. You will also notice some of my creations as well.

I saw a video on Facebook about creating Google Slides from a YouTube  video. I was intrigued.  Brisk is a Chrome Extension that has free and paid portions. Because I'm just curious, I signed up for the free account. Below is what the first screen looked like. I tried the "AI Presentation Maker" and the one little task I completed blew me away. I told it to make a rubric for a specific science standard and it created one within seconds. It is not perfect, but with editing, it could be ready-to-go. What a time saver! I am excited to check out some of the other features on this.

Grammarly  turned out to be a useful tool. I was skeptical because of all of the advertisements. It was a student that convinced me to give it a try. I appreciated it most when drafting school emails to parents. I always want to be professional. It allowed me to do so by flagging things I should check in my writing and providing feedback on my tone. It can also be added to Safari!

I love TabCloud! Summary : Chrome Extension that will save and name your webpages. I am the type of person that will have several tabs open as I work on projects. Rarely do I finish the project before I need to walk away from my computer. By using TabCloud, I was able to easily save all the pages I had open before I leave. I could even have groups of tabs from different projects saved. For example, I am working on my STEM class. I would have a STEM Tab Cloud. I would also be working on 7th grade science. My second TabCloud would be cells. You get the idea.

I love to walk around my Classroom as I provide instruction. I learned early on that this was important to minimizing off-task behaviors. There are a couple tools available on the market that work with your slides presentations. One popular tool is Pear Deck . I'll be honest and say that I'm not as big of a fan. I know there are benefits by being able to add questions for students to respond to and controlling their screens. I just found it time consuming for my purposes. Instead, I use the Google Chrome Extension Remote for Slides. It's a very simple tool that allows you to use your phone or tablet to progress through the Slides as you walk around your classroom. Basically, it allows you to have a remote. If you're interested, search the Chrome Store and they have a video walking you through what it looks like.

If you have not heard of Screencastify, you're in for a treat! Summary : Screencastify allows to record your voice, computer screen, and face while making free videos that upload to your Google Drive. You can add it to your Google Chrome by searching the App Store. There's a little bit of set-up before your initial use. Go through step-by-step to get started. Use: You can jump past the first minute if you do not need help going through the permissions.