Virtual video walkie-talkies? Meet the Marco Polo app
Why the Marco Polo app? With social distancing and remote learning on educators’ minds, there’s never been a more urgent
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Tools We Like
3 ways to use virtual bulletin boards
Padlet, Google Keep and Corkulous — oh my! 1.Padlet Padlet’s been a go-to for a number of our educators for
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Setting behavioral expectations in a makerspace
2 ways to bring in transferable skills Makerspaces are amazing. They’re a big carnival of lights and sounds and
Read moreUsing audiobooks for Universal Design for Learning
Expanding student access to reading As a school librarian, I needed to think how I could adopt Universal Design for
Read moreMachinima: using video games for storytelling
Be an X-Box Hero (with stars in your eyes)* Meet machinima. The word’s a portmanteau of “machine” and “cinema”. It’s
Read more4 ways students can control the pace of content delivery
Deliver the goods! Rather than creating a unit on the Civil War, imagine working with an individual student or small
Read moreThe tech-rich social studies classroom
Standard 3-part story-driven post: 1) what it is, 2) what it looks like in a school, 3) how to do it in your school
Read moreThe Perils and Possibilities of YouTube
How to make YouTube appropriate for the classroom YouTube can provide students and educators with hundreds of powerful educational videos
Read moreScreencast-o-matic on the Macbook
A step-by-step tutorial We helped one of our partner schools, Wallingford Elementary in Wallingford, Vermont, get set up with screencasting
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Exploring identity and current events with Chatterpix
Students tackle politicians’ identities Students at Peoples Academy Middle Level in Morrisville, Vermont, are exploring the theme of identity in their humanities
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A is for App Development
Help students prototype mobile apps with these development tools Mobile app development with students can be tricky, because in a lot of
Read moreChasing Google: A Defining Moment
Becoming a Google Certified Educator My fascination with Google started in the early 2000’s simply from a financial interest. Here
Read moreCollaborative digital tools for faculty meetings
Go beyond back-channeling and unlock creative communication This summer, look for ways to liven up your faculty meetings and delve a little
Read moreHow to use MoveNote for screencasting
Embed yourself in your video lesson MoveNote lets you create screencasts where you appear alongside the material, making how to screencast
Read more4 great online tools for the Hour of Code
Global day of coding coming in December December 8th – 14th, students and educators around the world will be taking an hour to
Read moreMonster Physics and the importance of careful consideration
This has been a very interesting week for me, trying to write a post for today. The task actually seemed
Read moreLeveraging Google Calendar in the Classroom
Inspiring collaboration between teachers, students and families The free suite of tools through Google Apps for Education have certainly inspired
Read moreMolecules in Augmented Reality
One of the challenges in science is to help students make connections from concepts to their real world. This can
Read moreToo much good stuff: a wealth of reading and curation resources for the classroom
The technology cannot thwart us, it can only make us stronger As many of you are aware, I was out
Read moreHow to add footnotes to Google Docs on your iPad
Cite your sources as you write I was working with a teacher the other day who expressed some frustration around
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Science and Math simulations for your class
One of the big challenges in the math and science classroom is to make abstract concepts real for your students.
Read more4 ways to use Flipboard in your flipped classroom
We’re flipping for Flipboard — and your students will too! Flipboard is a free mobile app for the iOS, Android and
Read moreHow to use EdPuzzle for differentiation
New cool tool for flipped classrooms and personalized learning Check out this great resource for differentiation and the flipped classroom:
Read moreCreate community in your classroom with ShadowPuppet
Free app for students to make quick and easy back-to-school slideshows
Read moreThinglink Video for educators
Get a sneak peek at the new Thinglink Many of you have undoubtedly heard of Thinglink’s new video service, where
Read moreWhat you should know about iPad cases
Getting mobile devices into the hands of educators and students is the name of the game, but what happens after to
Read moreChatterpix in the classroom
A new iOS app to blab about — literally! Chatterpix is a free iOS app that allows you to put
Read more4 great apps for creating presentations on your iPad
It’s that magical, magical time of the year again! No, not the end of the school year. (STOP THAT.) I
Read more#1minutehowto: Use EasyBib to create a GoogleDoc bibliography
Why We Like This This is Amy Gibson’s fabulous (and brief!) tutorial video about the EasyBib Google Docs Add-On, which
Read moreWant to try out interactive fiction and games?
Want to try out writing interactive fiction and games with your students? Here are three tools that make it easy
Read moreUse Image Capture to harvest videos off iOS devices
Has this ever happened to you? You’ve captured some amazing in-classroom video footage with your trusty iPad — a compelling
Read moreVT 8th grade class receives EduCast Pioneer award
Rachel Goodale’s 8th grade science class at Peoples Academy Middle Level was honored yesterday for their series of speed
Read moreJumpstart STEM badging with DIY
Here’s a great way to dip your toes in the digital credentialing waters: DIY.org. What Is It? Geared for kids
Read moreVideo creation and editing apps for the classroom
What tools you use are missing from this list? I sat down this afternoon to brainstorm a list of video
Read moreFrog dissection: there’s an app for that
Guest post by Lindsey Halman, facilitator at The Edge at Essex Middle School: What is a system? How are
Read moreNew from Hennessey: Nearpod
One way I know for sure an app has potential to transform classroom practice is when, with minimal introduction and
Read moreEdmunds Middle School is on the airwaves with ARIS
Edmunds Middle School teachers, students and district technologists were on Commissioner’s Corner last night , talking about their experiences designing
Read moreARIS @ Echo
When last we left our trusty Edmunds Explorers, they had just defeated a horde of geometry-loving aliens who’d invaded the
Read moreBest. Game launch. Ever.
Following up on our intro to ARIS with geometry last Friday, this morning the 6th graders from Edmunds Middle School
Read moreGeometry, aliens and ARIS at Edmunds Middle School
Pop quiz, hotshot. What do geometry, aliens and the augmented reality gaming platform all have in common? A: All were
Read moreThe Parable of the Puppet Pals: integrating technology in religion class
Julia Melloni, the Middle School Religion teacher at Mater Christi School in Burlington, worked with her students on “blending ancient
Read moreFrom a 1:1 toolkit: organizing student work on iPads with Google Drive
Peoples Academy Middle Level (PAML) educator Joe Speers returns with an explanation of how PAML uses Google Drive on iPads
Read more8th grade VT science: interpreting distance over Touchcast
by Rachel Goodale (Peoples Academy Middle Level) We started out this year with a Physics Unit studying the relationships
Read moreHow to: create your own Aurasma auras
In a nutshell, Aurasma’s augmented reality images are called auras. You make them with Aurasma Studio, which runs in your
Read moreMeet Aurasma: an augmented reality app for the classroom
Augmented reality apps allow users to experience a layer of additional information — usually visual or auditory — meshed with
Read moreHaving an augmented reality kind of morning
Okay, so I’m a few months early but oy, this weather, #btv. Brought to you by AR DinoPark, a free
Read moreHow students are using Touchcast: welcome videos!
As a follow-up to our post on how teachers are using Touchcast, here’s an example of how students are using
Read moreTeachers teaching Touchcast
We’re sharing the screencasting love over here at the Institute, thanks in no small part to #btv librarian-rockstar Shannon Walters
Read moreiMovie Exercise: Introduce yourself in a trailer
From Katie Sullivan and via our own @hennesss: “Look at this cool way to use iMovie for kids to be
Read moreBlogger of the week: Phoebe Slater
Phoebe Slater teaches 7th grade at one of our partner schools, Peoples Academy Middle Level, over on her blog, Slaterspace,
Read moreExplain Everything, um, explained.
A middle-schooler from Harwood explains how they’re using Explain Everything for a class project to capture stills and videos.
Read moreHow to: use iMovie on the iPad
A brief but effective demonstration of how to use iMovie to construct a poem recital video, courtesy a student at
Read moreMinecraft as digital storytelling tool
“Grand Theft Diamond”, a video from Flood Brook Union School’s 6th graders, shows how the popular game Minecraft can be
Read moreBrian Wagner on Aurasma, continued
Page 1 | 2 The annual Rube Goldberg Challenge is an opportunity for students to engage in their inner creative,
Read moreiPads in VT: we came, we saw, we apped
Over on Storify, a brief recap of how our first annual iPad play-day went this past weekend. With more than
Read moreMap apps for the iOS
An illustrated guide to the map apps covered at Friday’s iOS User Group meeting. [View the story “Map apps for
Read moreiPad Apps We Like: Germ Blaster
A one-minute screencast of actual game-play from the free iPad app Germ Blaster, by the Rice University Center for Technology
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