MCS Innovates!

Welcome to my page! I hope you will find useful ideas and tools on here that will inspire you and assist you in your classroom. Here is my monthly TechBit Newsletters 2019-2020

Here is a great website that helps you get started coding in your classroom.

Useful Extensions to add to Chrome:

Kami - PDF and Document Mark-Up (Can also be installed on your Google drive and allows you to write on PDF's and other documents)
Google Keep - Take notes within all your google apps (also available on your Google)
Save to Google Drive - Saves images, pages, and mutiple-format documents straight to your Drive.

Google Expeditions VR

I would love to share the virtual reality experience with you and your students! We have a VR kit at the tech office I can check out to you throughout the school year. Your students can travel into outer space, visit scenes during the Revolutionary War, or even visit a college campus right in your classroom. Here is a list of Google Expeditions you can take!

What is a Hyperdoc?

Here is a website that you can use to search some fabulous Hyperdocs to use with your students. You can also share with other teachers here too. Please check these out! Just remember to make a copy of any of these you would like to borrow!

https://www.hyperdocs.co/teachers_give_teachers

Also check out, HyperDoc Library on Livebinder

Also, any you create, please share on our county hyperdoc page

Let me know if I can help you in creating your own Hyperdocs!

Have You Tried These?

FlipGrid - Video Response for Your Students - Easy to use and students enjoy (Here is an educator's guide for the latest version.)
edpuzzle.com - Use it to search video clips, edit them, add questions to them, and share with your students. Works with Google Classroom too!
VirtualNerd - from Pearson Learning can be installed on smartphones and accessed via web. It has over 1500 tutorial videos for math grades 6-12.
Quizizz - online quiz platform similar to Kahoot but students can go at their own pace or even play solo = much quieter than Kahoot! You can borrow or create your own quizzes and share with colleagues.

Authors Who Skype for Free!

Middle School and High School Age-Appropriate Authors:

http://www.gregneri.com/school-visits/

http://www.ftbradley.com/author-visits.html

https://roycebuckingham.com/skype

http://www.sarahjschmitt.com/#!bring-sarah-to-you/c1n0d

http://www.lindavigenphillips.com/classroom-author-visit/

http://www.margipreus.com/school-visits-workshops/

http://www.jhoutman.com/pages/visits.html

http://www.amybearce.com/author-visits.html

http://www.dianarenn.net/visits.html

http://www.amandamarrone.com/Contact.htm

http://www.dianarenn.net/visits.html

http://www.maxbrallier.com/author-visits.html

**Be sure to e-mail the author to be sure they still Skype for free and are available. Some may charge a fee after so many sessions or may require you to purchase books first. Just ask if there are any fees in advance of scheduling.

Google Lit Trips

ELA teachers - Google Lit Trips are these fabulous units that use Google Maps to link points of interest in the real world with elements of the novel your students are working on. Here is a video introducing Lit Trips. Below is a partial list (mainly 6-8) of Lit Trips that are already available:

A Long Walk to Water

Around the World in 80 Days

Blood on the River by Elisa Carbone (STUDENT CREATED)

Bud Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis

Chasing Lincoln's Killer by James Swanson (STUDENT CREATED)

Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson

Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine

Hard Gold by AVI (STUDENT CREATED)

Journey to Topaz by Yoshiko Uchida

Marching for Freedom by Elizabeth Partridge

My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier, Christopher Collier

Remote Man by Elizabeth Honey

Sugar Changed the World by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos

The Brothers' War: Civil War Voices by J. Patrick Lewis

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares (STUDENT CREATED)

The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox

Underground to Canada by Barbara Smucker

Until the Last Spike, Journal of Sean Sullivan… by William Durbin

The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

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