Ms. Nissenbaum recently created a wonderful infographic syllabus to use with Spanish 1 classes. Using canva.com (free!), Erica put her graphic design skills to the test with an impressive digital summary of the course. The infographic can easily be added to Google Classroom or other classroom management websites. The appealing layout of the infographic and targeted summary provides an easily accessible resource for the school year.

Ms. Newsome recently used padlet.com to create a portfolio for student work in her Smart Phone Photography class. Padlet allows students and teachers to manage a collaborative site that has a "Pinterest" look. Student work is uploaded and neatly displayed for the whole class to see. Ms. Newsome plans on having the students use the site to critique works of art. Padlet is very user-friendly, compatible with Google, and offers flexibility in the types of files that are uploaded and displayed.

Mrs. Ritter's class took a virtual tour to Versailles recently. Using the VR Goggles, students toured the famous gardens, Hall of Mirrors, Bedrooms, and salons. The lesson started with an activator depicting an extravagent scene from the court of Louis XIV. Students then toured various rooms and answered critical thinking questions as they explored the idea of "Absolutism." The lesson wrapped up with a primary source analysis of the symbolic nature of Versailles and the French citizens' perspectives.

EdPuzzle is a great tool that allows teachers to build quick formative questions into YouTube video. Teachers are able to set up a free account and add students through the Google domain. Teachers are able to assign the videos directly to Google Classroom. Student scores are easily visible through the EdPuzzle site and on Google Classroom. Here is a sample video:

Mrs. Abel's Journalism class is going to be producing a podcast from January through June of 2019. Students will be broken into small groups and will plan, record, edit, and publish an episode of a class podcast. The podcast will be published and made public for the East Longmeadow community to hear. Below is an introductory lesson that was used to start the process and encourage students to start the design process. Feel free to use this with your students!

Mrs. Ritter and Mrs. Burakiewicz brought their World History classes together recently for a joint WebQuest on the Israel/Palestine conflict. Using a variety of background images, including maps and 360 images, the students were brought to downtown Jerusalem into the heart of the conflict. Thinglink allows teachers to pin a variety of media to the images to engage students with a variety of resources. A worksheet guided students from place to place. Click on the Red Arrow icons to move to the next image.

In the month of March, many ELHS teachers will have access to a digital resource called Albert IO. Albert IO provides a comprehensive set of learning experiences for a variety of high school subjects, including AP and SAT practice. Teachers and learners can customize their experience on the site to differentiate the learning experience. Question banks are provided for ELA, math, social studies, science, and more. Students receive immediate feedback and their wrong answers are addressed explained. Further practice is recommended to the student. Teachers receive a detailed report of how their class performed on assessments. See a sample question below:

Several English classes had the chance to tour the Globe Theatre using Augmented Reality. Students used the class set of English Department iPads and the Shakespeare Globe 360 App to take a guided tour of the Globe. Augmented Reality superimposes a computer generated image on a user's view of the real world, given students an up close view. Even though this is an emerging technology, several apps currently exist that can give your students this experience.

It's important to use technology to find news ways to synthesize and condense information. Gone are the days of loading up a Google Slides presentation with hundreds of bullets and facts. Recently, students in World History class were tasked with creating a 1 page report and an iMovie trailer about an anti-imperialism movement in Africa, Asia, or Central/South America. Students researched primary and secondary documents, chose appropriate and open source images and wrote a report summarizing their movement. Then, students used iMovie trailer templates on the Mac Airs to organize and synthesize the information they found into a 1-2 minute movie pitch. Classmates listened to their summaries, watched their trailers and then provided constructive feedback using a 0-4 star rating system.

How can we generate a discussion and give kids the chance to be heard? As we all know, high school students today are consuming a great deal of information from various media outlets. Over 50% of high schoolers are also frequent podcast listeners. Mr. Morrissey's class recently became the creators of this type of media as they were tasked with creating a Sports Lit Podcast on a controversial sports issue. These podcasts resembled sports "talk shows" and the kids really opened up. The discussions continued as students listened to each others and more debate and discussion ensued. Students also learned how to use GarageBand and edit audio in a productive and constructive way.