My students seem to like things like Canva, Flip (which I think is actually going away), making videos (we use WeVideo), etc. Really just things that make the classic "make a poster about x" a little more interesting. Nearpod is fine, but you're right that it's essentially just lecture with a little more interactivity
Not having monitoring software is going to be a nightmare. Especially if you try to do something like Nearpod with the whole class at once, they're all just going to be off doing other things the whole time.
I'd say my class is fairly light on lecture, but ultimately there's a certain amount of absorbing of information that needs to happen and I think history is pretty heavy with it compared to some other subject areas. You can mix up how they absorb the information, but they're going to need some combination of lecture, reading, videos, etc.
We've been 1:1 for several years and are just now starting to shift back to more activities on pen and paper, or the possibility of using actual books again. We do not have any software to limit student access to anything, and it is indeed an uphill battle at times. One thing students have enjoyed at times is mini-presentations. I'll break up some key topics that I would have otherwise lectured on, and make a Slides with the title of one topic (or event or person or whatever you're working on) on each slide. I usually link th title to an article on the subject, and sometimes also add a link to a video on the subject in the Speaker's notes. Students work in groups to prepare one slide on the slide they are assigned, mostly using the material I gave them. Doesn't cover the material quite as quickly as I would in lecture, but flips the classroom a bit. Also, if there are groups that don't do so great, others can always still read the linked article or video themselves.
Cheating and AI are huge issues, as most of the high schoolers have group chats to share HW for each class at our school. I do most of my writing in Google Docs and am very straightforward that I do look at revision history to see their work (nice thing is you can also do that in real time as they are working too if assigned in Google Classroom).
Good luck to ya!
I’ve used the mini presentations with my AP classes in the past and I’ll definitely have to try them with my regular world classes. Luckily this isn’t a state tested subject so we can give more time for things like this at the risk of not getting all the information.
IMO Chromebooks are one of the worst things that have happened to education in the last 10 years. Next year I decided that I’m moving away from them and doing most assignments using pen and paper. I’ve taught both in high school and middle school and they serve as a distraction. Post-pandemic kids have so much less attention span and immediately go to games.
Not a problem! I think there are advantages to having laptops but I agree with your statements. My admin is pressuring everyone to use them now that we have them
I believe in using both and trying to find the right balance. You mentioned they go straight to games which isn’t surprising to me.
Have you ever tried or considered trying to use the games that they gravitate towards and using those games themself to teach them with?
Canva: they can do numerous things on here. Political posters, infographic, etc!
Academic games: this is only for downtown honestly, but stuff like Oregon trail has great value
Gimkit: ok gimkit is a "academic" game. They play something like don't fall down and when they run out of energy, they have to answer questions. Personally, kahoot is better as it doesn't waste time on games
There is some applicant out there that allows for students to write on the board while you give a lesson, but I forgot what it's called. But many teachers find it useful
We video: this is a place where students can edit and upload videos. This is for big projects like a presentation for example
My favorite: Google document notes! Ok but for real, it's handy to have access to their graphic organizer notes so you can see what each student is doing.
I do like using nearpod when I am lecturing, specifically for the opened ended response questions. Before going over a topic, I will ask some leading questions in the nearpod for the entire class to answer, display all of the answers on the board and then have students further explain what they said. Usually I will time them for like 2 minutes, and then move onto the next prompt. This also works great for analyzing cartoons or photos as a class.
I think you may run into some trouble if your admin is pressing for ground breaking interactive lesson plans. Unless they give you specific ideas, for the most part, kids are so used with computers, they are not going to be really any more interested or engaged, just because they have one in the classroom.
Having kids work on something in small groups on a shared Google document, and then splitting up those groups, and having them share out individually in new groups usually is a good frame work.
I definitely see benefits of the question types that can be posed in nearpod, but I’m feeling too lazy to go back and edit all my ppts right now! 😭 summer and also getting 2 new preps that require more attention.
I’ll have to see if the plc members can take turns editing.
I’ll definitely have them work together in google docs and stuff. I like being able to see who did what too!
I have a quired a fair number of templates where students have to create a yelp review/amazon listing/airbnb listing/Netflix series on a topic. Hard for ai to replicate.
You could also try a quid pro quo, we will do more laptop activities, when you give us monitoring software.
Thank you all for your suggestions! These are great and I’ll start working on incorporating these! We were talking as a plc how we can do more student-forward learning and a lot of these ideas will definitely be tried out in our classes.
It seems like others have the same issues that I will encounter - students using laptops for fun instead of class work - but overall y’all seemed to find a nice balance!
Definitely lean into research as much as you can. That’s what these tools are for. Teach them how to use your school and local library’s online resources as well as Google Scholar, university, museum and gov websites. I have my students do numerous projects over the course of the year that demand that they complete research in advance. If they choose to mess around playing games every time my back is turned, that’s on them. Their final product and grade will suffer as a result.
Ive always been limited in how much research I can get my students to due to lack of resources, but I am excited to do this with them this year. They have 0 research skills. I had a student once who didn’t even know where to start to look up information on google.
Yeah they think they need to type their questions in to Google as well instead of just key terms. It’s wild given how much time they spend on devices how limited their tech skills are. Use what resources you have - your librarian is surely the research expert on your campus. Go on a fieldtrip to the library beginning of the year so that your librarian can teach students how to use whatever systems you have such as Proquest, SIRS, Britannica, Gale, SORA, etc. As for free databases, there is also the SSRN and PubMed, but both may feature far higher level content. Finally, I’m excited to utilize the AI history textbook Inquistory, but they are in beta mode now.
Digital Breakout Rooms are really fun. I've been developing a "Level Up Game" that is built into google sheets and allows kids to pick assignments they want to do, and there are usually 4 categories to choose from, where they have to complete enough tasks in each category. Been pretty good so far, always adjusting it
Have them create digital products of their own work- infographics, slide decks, movies, games, podcasts, etc. I love Nearpod- you can make them self-paced and pull small groups while they work independently. Have them research a topic or issue and give an oral presentation. Teach them how to do actual research. Not having monitoring software stinks for sure, but there are options.
I haven’t done online murder mystery activities but I have done a couple paper ones. The kids love them and they have no idea it’s just primary source work 😂
I’ve been 1:1 for the last 11 years and I still use paper, but they use the laptop for mostly research and the occasional PowerPoint or timeline activity (i like time toast.) During lockdown I had tons of online activities and they learned very little so now I only use it as a supplement, enough to keep admin off my back, but barely.
I love the collaboration board which is anonymous. They do a tour feature which I’ve used to explore the palace of Versailles, they have video features you can embed edpuzzle like videos on with interactive videos. I also like the draw it feature so they can draw on documents to underline and highlight. There are so many, and I can track participation and go to a student who isn’t taking part and give them a gentle redirection.
i'm sorry for your loss. the laptops are a huge mistake that my school has yet to fix. i'm running solo on that front lol.
consider using class dojo. it's a management app that lets you assign things and watch them complete them. Edpuzzle is good, flippity can be useful, wooclap i'm not good at but maybe you will be, lumio is excellent, nearpod doesn't have enough space but its good too, [genial.ly](http://genial.ly) is good but i haven't got really good at it yet either.
Thanks for all the suggestions! A lot of them I haven’t heard of, but I’ve used edpuzzle in the past and liked it for easy hw assignments when I didn’t have time to get to something.
I have a recommendation but I also don’t want anyone to feel like I’m spamming my own company so I’ll leave out the name.
I created a free online platform to help improve student engagement. It helps teachers and students take any video game in existence and create an educational lesson out of it. I’m assuming most of your students probably play video games recreationally and would be really captivated by it. You can easily create short lessons yourself as we upload thousands of free gaming clips for users to create with or you could challenge your students to create something themselves.
History is one of my favorite subjects so I would be more than happy to connect with you and create a short lesson for your class if you just let me know a specific history subject matter to focus on.
Honestly Minecraft Education. There are numerous worlds prebuilt that will allow you to engage students with topics such as civil rights, apartheid, climate change, and many more. It’s not a use everyday thing but definitely a great way to change things up and keep kids engaged.
Minecraft Ed is free on app stores. There is a free trial but at some point it does have a subscription. Many districts who use outlook/microsoft 365 have a subscription as a part of the Microsoft umbrella.
Seterra Geoguessr is the greatest geography learning activity of all time. It’s a gamified way for students to learn about any region of the map. I use it in my personal life as well.
Since you're already in a groove with lectures/notes, I'd highly recommend you look in to the Modern Classrooms Project! In a nutshell, you convert your lectures into lesson videos that students watch on their own pace, so they never miss anything because they were absent or out of the classroom, and they can catch up on their own time if they fall behind. I've also found it makes it easier to assess how well each individual student is following the lessons.
I don't follow all of the MCP method, but these are the steps that work for me:
1: Creating a PowerPoint for delivering content, including a handout and slides showing how they should be taking notes.
2: Instead of presenting this as a whole class lesson, I use ScreenPal to create a video of myself going through the PowerPoint and asking checking for understanding questions along the way (a little "Dora the Explorer" style, but I've gotten used to it so it feels natural).
3: I then upload this video to Playposit, where I can add questions-- literally, moments for the kids to respond via multiple choice to the checks for understanding. They get the immediate feedback of their answer turning green or red.
4: My students view these Playposit videos because I can link them on my Canvas page. I can see how they've done on the questions, and on key lessons I'll add an open-response question based on the learning objective at the end of the video, which is what they get a grade for.
It may seem like a lot, but it pays off. It's easy to build it into a routine students can follow easily, and during class time I'm free to walk around and support individual students. Also, once I make a video, I may use it every following year!
My students seem to like things like Canva, Flip (which I think is actually going away), making videos (we use WeVideo), etc. Really just things that make the classic "make a poster about x" a little more interesting. Nearpod is fine, but you're right that it's essentially just lecture with a little more interactivity Not having monitoring software is going to be a nightmare. Especially if you try to do something like Nearpod with the whole class at once, they're all just going to be off doing other things the whole time. I'd say my class is fairly light on lecture, but ultimately there's a certain amount of absorbing of information that needs to happen and I think history is pretty heavy with it compared to some other subject areas. You can mix up how they absorb the information, but they're going to need some combination of lecture, reading, videos, etc.
We've been 1:1 for several years and are just now starting to shift back to more activities on pen and paper, or the possibility of using actual books again. We do not have any software to limit student access to anything, and it is indeed an uphill battle at times. One thing students have enjoyed at times is mini-presentations. I'll break up some key topics that I would have otherwise lectured on, and make a Slides with the title of one topic (or event or person or whatever you're working on) on each slide. I usually link th title to an article on the subject, and sometimes also add a link to a video on the subject in the Speaker's notes. Students work in groups to prepare one slide on the slide they are assigned, mostly using the material I gave them. Doesn't cover the material quite as quickly as I would in lecture, but flips the classroom a bit. Also, if there are groups that don't do so great, others can always still read the linked article or video themselves. Cheating and AI are huge issues, as most of the high schoolers have group chats to share HW for each class at our school. I do most of my writing in Google Docs and am very straightforward that I do look at revision history to see their work (nice thing is you can also do that in real time as they are working too if assigned in Google Classroom). Good luck to ya!
I’ve used the mini presentations with my AP classes in the past and I’ll definitely have to try them with my regular world classes. Luckily this isn’t a state tested subject so we can give more time for things like this at the risk of not getting all the information.
They are definitely going to cheat more. I advise you to create some peardecks for your lectures
IMO Chromebooks are one of the worst things that have happened to education in the last 10 years. Next year I decided that I’m moving away from them and doing most assignments using pen and paper. I’ve taught both in high school and middle school and they serve as a distraction. Post-pandemic kids have so much less attention span and immediately go to games.
realized I didn’t address your questions. Apologies.
Not a problem! I think there are advantages to having laptops but I agree with your statements. My admin is pressuring everyone to use them now that we have them
I believe in using both and trying to find the right balance. You mentioned they go straight to games which isn’t surprising to me. Have you ever tried or considered trying to use the games that they gravitate towards and using those games themself to teach them with?
Canva: they can do numerous things on here. Political posters, infographic, etc! Academic games: this is only for downtown honestly, but stuff like Oregon trail has great value Gimkit: ok gimkit is a "academic" game. They play something like don't fall down and when they run out of energy, they have to answer questions. Personally, kahoot is better as it doesn't waste time on games There is some applicant out there that allows for students to write on the board while you give a lesson, but I forgot what it's called. But many teachers find it useful We video: this is a place where students can edit and upload videos. This is for big projects like a presentation for example My favorite: Google document notes! Ok but for real, it's handy to have access to their graphic organizer notes so you can see what each student is doing.
Great idea about the google doc notes! Save a lot of paper and then I can look back and see who was paying attention and working
Canva is great! When you mention academic games, what do you mean by they’re only for downtown?
I do like using nearpod when I am lecturing, specifically for the opened ended response questions. Before going over a topic, I will ask some leading questions in the nearpod for the entire class to answer, display all of the answers on the board and then have students further explain what they said. Usually I will time them for like 2 minutes, and then move onto the next prompt. This also works great for analyzing cartoons or photos as a class. I think you may run into some trouble if your admin is pressing for ground breaking interactive lesson plans. Unless they give you specific ideas, for the most part, kids are so used with computers, they are not going to be really any more interested or engaged, just because they have one in the classroom. Having kids work on something in small groups on a shared Google document, and then splitting up those groups, and having them share out individually in new groups usually is a good frame work.
I definitely see benefits of the question types that can be posed in nearpod, but I’m feeling too lazy to go back and edit all my ppts right now! 😭 summer and also getting 2 new preps that require more attention. I’ll have to see if the plc members can take turns editing. I’ll definitely have them work together in google docs and stuff. I like being able to see who did what too!
I have a quired a fair number of templates where students have to create a yelp review/amazon listing/airbnb listing/Netflix series on a topic. Hard for ai to replicate. You could also try a quid pro quo, we will do more laptop activities, when you give us monitoring software.
I love this.
Google earth can make some really fun mapping projects
Thank you all for your suggestions! These are great and I’ll start working on incorporating these! We were talking as a plc how we can do more student-forward learning and a lot of these ideas will definitely be tried out in our classes. It seems like others have the same issues that I will encounter - students using laptops for fun instead of class work - but overall y’all seemed to find a nice balance!
Definitely lean into research as much as you can. That’s what these tools are for. Teach them how to use your school and local library’s online resources as well as Google Scholar, university, museum and gov websites. I have my students do numerous projects over the course of the year that demand that they complete research in advance. If they choose to mess around playing games every time my back is turned, that’s on them. Their final product and grade will suffer as a result.
Ive always been limited in how much research I can get my students to due to lack of resources, but I am excited to do this with them this year. They have 0 research skills. I had a student once who didn’t even know where to start to look up information on google.
Yeah they think they need to type their questions in to Google as well instead of just key terms. It’s wild given how much time they spend on devices how limited their tech skills are. Use what resources you have - your librarian is surely the research expert on your campus. Go on a fieldtrip to the library beginning of the year so that your librarian can teach students how to use whatever systems you have such as Proquest, SIRS, Britannica, Gale, SORA, etc. As for free databases, there is also the SSRN and PubMed, but both may feature far higher level content. Finally, I’m excited to utilize the AI history textbook Inquistory, but they are in beta mode now.
Digital Breakout Rooms are really fun. I've been developing a "Level Up Game" that is built into google sheets and allows kids to pick assignments they want to do, and there are usually 4 categories to choose from, where they have to complete enough tasks in each category. Been pretty good so far, always adjusting it
Look up Thin Sides Eduprotocol. I’ve had success with that. Quizziz too.
Have them create digital products of their own work- infographics, slide decks, movies, games, podcasts, etc. I love Nearpod- you can make them self-paced and pull small groups while they work independently. Have them research a topic or issue and give an oral presentation. Teach them how to do actual research. Not having monitoring software stinks for sure, but there are options.
I’ve seen a lot a talk about monitoring software. What are the most important monitoring features you feel a great product should have for you to use?
I’ve done some ‘murder mystery’ online activities that’s really primary sources in disguise which work well
Any that you can recommend? This sounds great!
I do CSI: Florence which is about who killed one of the Medicis and Pawn Stars: Africa which has kids investigate if gold or halite is more valuable.
I haven’t done online murder mystery activities but I have done a couple paper ones. The kids love them and they have no idea it’s just primary source work 😂
I’ve been 1:1 for the last 11 years and I still use paper, but they use the laptop for mostly research and the occasional PowerPoint or timeline activity (i like time toast.) During lockdown I had tons of online activities and they learned very little so now I only use it as a supplement, enough to keep admin off my back, but barely.
I think I’ll still be paper-based for the most part because of the students I have. But having the laptops is definitely nice for projects!
I forget who on TPT, but they have fantastic virtual field trips using slides/Google earth!
I use pear deck and Nearpod and the kids love it! It’s interactive and engaging. I’m happy to share a sample lesson if you want it.
What are your favorite features of Nearpod if you don’t mind me asking?
I love the collaboration board which is anonymous. They do a tour feature which I’ve used to explore the palace of Versailles, they have video features you can embed edpuzzle like videos on with interactive videos. I also like the draw it feature so they can draw on documents to underline and highlight. There are so many, and I can track participation and go to a student who isn’t taking part and give them a gentle redirection.
Great feedback. Thank you.
I’ve seen samples of peardeck and thought it was neat. But I can’t remember if it’s a subscription?
You can use some capabilities but not all. It’s work asking your admin for some money for it.
i'm sorry for your loss. the laptops are a huge mistake that my school has yet to fix. i'm running solo on that front lol. consider using class dojo. it's a management app that lets you assign things and watch them complete them. Edpuzzle is good, flippity can be useful, wooclap i'm not good at but maybe you will be, lumio is excellent, nearpod doesn't have enough space but its good too, [genial.ly](http://genial.ly) is good but i haven't got really good at it yet either.
Thanks for all the suggestions! A lot of them I haven’t heard of, but I’ve used edpuzzle in the past and liked it for easy hw assignments when I didn’t have time to get to something.
Choices Program from Brown University. Excellent resource
I have a recommendation but I also don’t want anyone to feel like I’m spamming my own company so I’ll leave out the name. I created a free online platform to help improve student engagement. It helps teachers and students take any video game in existence and create an educational lesson out of it. I’m assuming most of your students probably play video games recreationally and would be really captivated by it. You can easily create short lessons yourself as we upload thousands of free gaming clips for users to create with or you could challenge your students to create something themselves. History is one of my favorite subjects so I would be more than happy to connect with you and create a short lesson for your class if you just let me know a specific history subject matter to focus on.
Honestly Minecraft Education. There are numerous worlds prebuilt that will allow you to engage students with topics such as civil rights, apartheid, climate change, and many more. It’s not a use everyday thing but definitely a great way to change things up and keep kids engaged.
Would I need to purchase a subscription for my classes? That sounds awesome!
Minecraft Ed is free on app stores. There is a free trial but at some point it does have a subscription. Many districts who use outlook/microsoft 365 have a subscription as a part of the Microsoft umbrella.
Nearpod has good interactive lessons.
Seterra Geoguessr is the greatest geography learning activity of all time. It’s a gamified way for students to learn about any region of the map. I use it in my personal life as well.
Since you're already in a groove with lectures/notes, I'd highly recommend you look in to the Modern Classrooms Project! In a nutshell, you convert your lectures into lesson videos that students watch on their own pace, so they never miss anything because they were absent or out of the classroom, and they can catch up on their own time if they fall behind. I've also found it makes it easier to assess how well each individual student is following the lessons. I don't follow all of the MCP method, but these are the steps that work for me: 1: Creating a PowerPoint for delivering content, including a handout and slides showing how they should be taking notes. 2: Instead of presenting this as a whole class lesson, I use ScreenPal to create a video of myself going through the PowerPoint and asking checking for understanding questions along the way (a little "Dora the Explorer" style, but I've gotten used to it so it feels natural). 3: I then upload this video to Playposit, where I can add questions-- literally, moments for the kids to respond via multiple choice to the checks for understanding. They get the immediate feedback of their answer turning green or red. 4: My students view these Playposit videos because I can link them on my Canvas page. I can see how they've done on the questions, and on key lessons I'll add an open-response question based on the learning objective at the end of the video, which is what they get a grade for. It may seem like a lot, but it pays off. It's easy to build it into a routine students can follow easily, and during class time I'm free to walk around and support individual students. Also, once I make a video, I may use it every following year!