MARCHing Into Learning: Exciting Resources and Instructional Technology Activities

-

It's that time of year when novelty is key. Testing season is upon us and the students have mostly mastered the routines of the classroom so it is the perfect time to try something new. Below are some ideas and resources to help combat those winter blues, help students work on digital learning skills, and add fun to your daily instruction.

Host a March Madness Typing Club Challenge! This is really quite easy. After assigning your students a typing course, track their progress and create some friendly competition. All you need is a bit of time during class to let them practice. Bonus win- their keyboarding skills and practice time will help prep them for those big tests. You may even consider hosting a grade or school-wide contest on who can get the most stars or minutes practicing. Request the elevated role to monitor your school data here. Not sure about Typing Club? Find out more here.


March is International Women's History Month. Honor the courageous first ladies who changed the world, with this Discovery Education Studio Board. Assign it so that students can work self-paced or work as a whole group to hear the story read aloud, respond to questions, along with writing and illustration tasks. Middle schoolers can conduct research in Discovery Education with 6 pages of engaging content in this Major Women Figures Board. Afterwards, students can complete one of the 3 project ideas, one of which includes them composing their own studio board presentation on a significant female in history.


UNESCO designated March 21st as World Poetry Day to celebrate the importance of poetry as an artform. I love the idea of using Wixie, Adobe Express, or WeVideo to create visual graphics to go along with student created poems. This can be done across all subjects. It can be as simple as having students record themselves reading their poem and adding illustrations in Wixie, to creating a collage or infographic in Adobe Express. To take it a step further, students can compose a video using text animations, music, and voice overlay in WeVideo. What an awesome way to showcase student work. Check out these examples of a haiku made in WeVideo using screen blend for the text and images.




Pi Day is March 14th. Math people rejoice! Students can create Eric Curts' Pi-Line Skyline art while learning the first 25 digits of Pi, how to create a bar graph, and Google Sheet tech skills. Or combine real life concrete measurement of circular objects, have students look for patterns, and discover what Pi actually means in this Google Sheets activity.



Of course, we can't mention March without mentioning St. Patrick's Day. For some fun digital ideas to use with students, and other seasonal resources, check out our Digital Take Out webpage. 


For information on getting started with these apps, and other inspiration, be sure to explore Teacher Intro to Digital Tools. Let us know if you decide to run with one of these ideas or tag us on Twitter @aacpsoit or Instagram @aacps_oit !

Popular Posts

Book Studies in Brightspace

-
Image
By Melissa Connelly, Behavior Specialist & Brightspace Campus Champion at Belle Grove Elementary, and Stacy Langhirt, 1st grade teacher and former eCoach, Severna Park Elementary Books clubs about technology, really? Yes! It was an awesome experience. When asked to facilitate a class during the summer of 2021, feeling a little burned out on technology we asked if we could try something new. Guess what the answer was a  resounding, YES. That is how a five week technology book study came to be using our new LMS, Brightspace. Facilitating a book study about tools and technology that we have available to us everyday and that our students are familiar with just made so much sense. We were able to share a wonderful text, Eric Curts' Control Alt Achieve: Rebooting your Classroom with Creative Google Projects ,  that was rich with ideas on using Google Workspace for Education in the classroom and we had conversations centered around those ideas that helped all of us to grow as e...
Read more

Who to Follow on Social Media

-
Image
by Kerri Lambert, Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist In OIT, we are often asked how we learn “all this stuff” and how do we keep up with all the changes across our platforms. There are several ways, but one of our favorite ways is to peruse Twitter when we have a moment. This allows us to get information from one place and in the small snippets of time- and it doesn’t fill up our inboxes! If you are on Twitter and looking for people to follow, here are a few that we recommend. It’s no secret that OIT supports a variety of instructional applications and yes, sometimes it can feel overwhelming! But, many of the programs we subscribe to are active on Twitter. Not only do they tweet out updates or upcoming features, but also showcase ways educators across the country are using their products with students. This is also a great way to find out about learning opportunities such as webinars or conferences. Following the companies gives you the best of both worlds- updates and inspir...
Read more

Computational Thinking: Its really not that scary!

-
Image
By Kerri Lambert, Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist Computational thinking. It’s one of those current, hot educational phrases that leaves most teachers scratching their heads and thinking, “Does this really apply to me?” Especially when most articles and books stress its relationship and importance to computer science.  However, the more I read, the more I’m convinced that computational thinking extends to all content at all grade levels. After all, at its most basic, computational thinking is all about the process of problem solving. And let’s face it, that’s something we all do, all day long!  So what exactly IS computational thinking? By definition, computational thinking is the process of breaking down complex problems down into parts, recognizing patterns, and devising a solution. It has four pillars or processes: Broken down into the processes, computational thinking seems a lot less intimidating. I mean, even cleaning the house can be broken down into comp...
Read more