I learned a lot at our October online professional development, "Tech and Social Studies," during which Bainville teacher April Wills led us through several tools.
I was particularly intrigued by Canva, a free design tool with templates students can use to make professional looking posters, presentations, brochures, infographics, storyboards, and more using customizable templates.
April also talked about Wakelet, which she called Pinterest on steroids because it is a tool to organize absolutely every sort of file, from pictures and PDFs to websites to tweets. April uses it to gather reputable sources and safe websites for her students' research projects so they aren't roaming the internet independently.
A few days after class, Billings elementary librarian Ruth Ferris and I were talking about our take-aways and she mentioned another tech tool: World Wall. WordWall.net offers templates you can use to make educational games. Ruth made this Whack-a-Mole game for her students to help them learn the names of Montana's reservations.
All of these tools have been authorized by Billings School District, so it *should* be relatively easy to get permission to use them at your school as well. If you have other tools that you (and your students) love, let me know and I'll share them
Our next online PD will feature the remarkable Mike Jetty from the Montana Office of Public Instruction's Indian Education Unit (buckle up for dad jokes) and Indian Education for All Resources. Join us November 14 from 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. to hear about the latest resources from OPI and to learn what IEFA lessons are working for your fellow teachers. Register here by November 11 to receive the Zoom link.
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