For those of us in the northern hemisphere, the school year has come to an end and we’re all looking forward to summer vacation. Bring it on! And our 2017-18 Cool Tools for School workshop has also come to end.
But if you’re like me, you want to keep learning over the summer – in between picnics, vacations and some relaxing down time reading some good books. To that end, I’ve borrowed this fun summer learning bingo board idea from Amber Teamann’s Stop the Summer Slide post on Love, Learn, Lead. (Thanks Amber!)
Pick some things from the board that intrigue you or create your own list of a few learning goals for the summer and let’s share. Open to anyone who wants to join in and share. There are no rules! 🙂 And no professional development credits. Just learning what you want to learn for your own sake. (Though maybe we’ll have a drawing for some free “scholarships” to next year’s Cool Tools workshop if there’s interest?)
Use the hashtag #CoolToolsPD to share on social media. You can also share in the comments below, on our Padlet or in the Facebook group.
- Try Google Draw Make a copy of this bingo card and add your own goals. Fill in the middle space with your own personal reward! Google Drawing Cheat Sheet from Shake Up Learning and 10 engaging Google Drawings activities for classes
- Say hello or share something you want to learn on our Padlet or in the Facebook group.
- Find your Twitter Tribe – Find a twitter hashtag for your area of education and explore what is being shared. Retweet something you find and add the hashtag #CoolToolsPD to share it with all of us. Some twitter hashtag lists: Cybrary Man’s collection of education hashtags and Shake Up Learning collection of education hashtags
- Quad blogging is a great way to connect your classroom to others around the world and give your students a meaningful writing experience.
- Try a new podcast - Two of my favorites 10 Minute Teacher with Cool Cat Teacher, Vicki Davis and Google Teacher Tribe with Kasey Bell and Matt Miller More: 15 Teacher Podcasts for Your Summer Playlist
- Try Adobe Spark to share a quote or create a graphic. Some fun Adobe Spark ideas here 7 Must-Try Summer Projects with Adobe Spark
- Check out an ebook or an digital magazine from your school or public library (whichever one you haven’t tried before!) If you’re in New York State, did you know you can get a New York Public Library card and access their collection of ebooks and digital magazines. Really expands your options! Want to organize your personal collection of ebooks? Calibre is a terrific tool that runs on your desktop.
- Add a professional book to your summer reading list and read it! Maybe something from this GoodReads list on Growth Mindset.
- Follow a live twitter chat and retweet 3 things with hashtag #CoolToolsPD so we can follow along. Education Twitter Chat Calendar
- Spring clean your social media. Has your twitter, facebook, feedly or some other service grown out of control? This is top of my list! My Feedly account is full of stuff I never read anymore, so I rarely even bother looking at it. I need to weed it out and reorganize so it’s useful again. Or maybe I need to switch completely to Flipboard. Maybe you feel that way about your Twitter account? Try using Twitter Lists to help tame the chaos. Check out this post on Digital Spring Cleaning!
- Consider a very different approach to assessment – What do you think of this assessment idea? Alan November Shares A Mind Blowing New Idea in Assessment
- Social Media security check up – Check your Google & Facebook settings. Or check out Stay Safe Online and Test Your Security Knowledge With Our Computer Security Day Quiz
- Watch a webinar on EdWeb or participate in one in real time, there are hundreds to choose from. All free! Join one of their communities and then browse the list of archived webinars and the calendar of upcoming webinars.
- Google Expeditions What a fun app to take your kiddos on 360 degree immersive tours of historic sites, remote landscapes, and more. Find a friend and download the app to your mobile devices. One of you will be the guide and the other the student. The guide opens their app and selects an expedition. The student opens their app and is be prompted to join the teacher’s expedition. (I tested it out by myself with my iPad as the guide and my Android phone as the student.) Can be used with or without VR viewers (like Google Cardboard). Don’t have devices for each student? You can project the expedition on a screen for the whole class to follow along.
- Pick a letter! A to Z Tech Tools for Learning – Michelle Luhtala’s June EdWeb webinar with 50 tools for use in the library and classroom.
- Use Pinterest or Edshelf to gather resources for a next school year. Some examples: Curation as a research and learning tool Pinterest board by Joyce Valenza and Polly Farrington’s Tech For the Love of Learning EdShelf board.
- Try a new formative assessment tool Pick one from this handy article by Tony
Vincent, Know Students Better: A Visual Guide to Formative Assessment Tools - Searching for images for class? Use the Creative Commons search tool to make sure you find images that you can legally use and that don’t have a copyright restriction on them. For more info, read New Creative Commons image search in beta
- Going somewhere interesting this summer? Create a 360 image with the Google Streetview Camera app on your cell phone (Android and iOS, Free) You can explore 360 images created by others or create your own and add them to Google Maps. How to create 360 images with google street view app by Sylvia Duckworth – slides 13-15 detail how to use the app. It’s not hard. but you’ll want to practice a few times. More: Engaging Students Through Google Maps and Consider adding your images to the 360 images for school collection on flickr.
- Try Buncee for presentations – A fun tool for creating a single ‘slide’ or many slides. Lots of colorful backgrounds, images and animations to choose from. Add your own graphics, audio, embed videos, add text and more. Free and fee plans, classroom options as well. Use it for student presentations, flipped classroom content, storytelling and more. Or a “what I did this summer” slide show. Tons of ideas on ClassTechTips
- Explore Jennifer LaGarde’s terrific collection of “Books for a Better World” slidedeck – Add it to your own website as is, or make a copy and customize it.
- Explore Google Lit Trips – Are you reading a book or doing a research project with a strong geographic component? Try creating a tour of the locations mentioned and add photos, notes and more to add further context. This can be done in Google Maps or Google Earth.
- Create your own Lit Trips (and more) for Google Earth
- Lit Trips on Chromebooks with the New Google Earth
- Google Lit Trips site has lots of resources and examples.
- Attend an edcamp in person or virtually Attend this online event EdChange Global (July 28) or check to see if there’s an EdCamp coming up in your region.
- Try Flipgrid for gathering student feedback – Terrific tool for recording short video responses to questions. Flipgrid One is free to educators Some examples shared by Kristina Holzweiss (Follow this link for an offer to try Flipgrid classroom for free through September)
This sounds like a great idea AND without a lot of pressure! Thanks!
Yay! 🙂 glad you like the idea.