Teacher Hacks from Buzzfeed

This is a short post, but I came across a post on social media showing 25 teacher hacks from Buzzfeed. Here is the link. I bet many pros already know some of these, but perhaps you will find a gem to add to your bag of tricks this year. Enjoy!

You need to check out Byrdseed!

I am not sure how I came across Byrdseed, but I am sure glad I found it and bookmarked during the school year. I was in the process of cleaning out my bookmarks and I found this gem. The gist of the site is that it provides a variety of ideas and views on how to differentiate lessons for "gifted" students. No matter what level of students you teach at the secondary level, I guarantee you will find ideas and resources to help you become a better educator. This isn't a tech post per se , however, this post does illustrate an extremely useful website to get you motivated for the upcoming school year.

Here are a couple of my favorite posts:

1. Writing Better Personal Narratives: This is a great, concise piece providing tangible ideas to help students write their personal narrative. As we begin the school year, my new schools are planning to spend time having students discuss their journey thus far. I plan on using and sharing this post with my colleagues.

2. Creative Math Warmups: I was never a great math student. Perhaps it was because I didn't have strong math teachers that sparked my interest in the subject like my social studies and English teachers. However, if I was a student and my teacher started class with some of these warmups, who knows how much better my math grades would have been in high school.

3. We Only Get Stronger When it is Difficult: This is a great motto for any classroom. Because I will be working with newcomer ELL students, I would like to emphasize this motto on a daily basis since most of my students will struggle and potentially think about leaving school to work for money. The post shows some great images and how he used the motto with his students.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/barneymoss/6013029552 

Up your Google Apps Game!

A new colleague of mine asked me today whether one could save a copy of the same Google Drive file in multiple folders without having to make copies. I didn't know if this was possible until I did some snooping and came across this great website, Google Apps Tips. Not only did the site provide a worded explanation of this process, but it also provided a multimedia presentation explaining the process too. Here is the link to this process.

I have spent a little bit of time on the site this evening, and I am very impressed at the site's layout and practicality that teachers need.

If you haven't set this up already, I would strongly urge you to incorporate the 2-step verification process when you open your Google account on a new device. I use this function for both my Gmail and my Dropbox account to deter someone doing something malicious to my precious files and personal information. Here is a link explaining the process in more details.

Finally, the site links up to short and informational videos for using Google Apps for work/school. I am including their most recent episode below.