Technology and Learning at SLSD

Originality Reports - When used from Google Classroom you can check for plagiarism in both Google Docs and Google Slides assignments.  How to use originality reports in Google Classroom: Students can also use this tool to "catch unintentional plagiarism" by checking for missing citations. They can run the report 3 times before turning in the assignment. This can assist students with building on outside ideas and how to use them properly in their writing. 

Piskel - is a free online program that can be used to create simple images and Gif animations.  This is a great program for having students create quick graphics for projects or presentations. One thing I love about it is that it can be used by all different levels of artists. You can create a simple image or a complex one with shading. Shout out to Luciann Gavin for sharing this tool. You no longer need to create an account to use this app. It does not collect any information from the students. This also means their images will not be stored when they leave the site. You should finish and download your completed image or animation in one session.  There is a save to browser but I rather not trust it.  Here is the tutorial I watched to learn how to use Piskel but there are a lot of other ones on YouTube.  How can I use it? Create a comic book or video game character to write about Create character trait cards for characters in a story Create baseball-type cards...

SOS Spotlight on Strategies   What is an SOS? "Spotlight on Strategies are creative, research-based instructional strategies, created by teachers for teachers." If you log in to Discovery Education (Using Classlink ) you will be able to find a large number of Instructional Strategies by searching "SOS".  Here is one example - Table Top Texting - Students receive a blank piece of paper and use it to create a text thread with other students.  A student starts by asking a question and then the next student responds. I observed one ELA teacher using this strategy by having the first student write something as a text message and the second student "translated" it into a grammatically correct sentence.  Table Top Texting  works well with the whole class or partners.  Discovery does a good job of providing instructions for each strategy. Many of the descriptions contain both written instructions and a video. List of articles on SOS  You can also find additio...