Create a website

Websites are easier to create than ever — and more attractive, too.

Websites are highly organizational tools. They help students pull information together in sub-pages with headings. By organizing information for their readers, they’re also organizing it and making sense of it for themselves.

Suggested tool: Google Sites and Microsoft Sway.

Resource: 20 Google Sites tips and tricks

Create a Screencast Video

Screencast videos are an alternative to the traditional “talk in front of the class” presentations.

They’re efficient: students can create and view them independently.

They let students avoid the nerves of talking in front of the class and focus on presenting what they know and have learned.

Screencast videos can take many forms:

• Demonstration on a website

• Flipping through presentation slides

• Going on a virtual walking tour with Google Maps Street View

• … and many, many more.

Suggested tool: Screencastify (Google Chrome) and the Flipgrid screencasting option (web browser)

Resources:

•  24 ways to create great classroom video with Screencastify

• Screen Recording: How to record your screen using the Flipgrid camera

Create an Infographic

Infographics are very brain-friendly. They create a powerful verbal/visual mix that helps encode information in students’ long-term memory.

Plus, they can be fun to create! They can end up being these visually stimulating products of student learning … the kind that students want to share with others!

Suggested tool: Google Drawings or Canva

Resources:

•  Create eye-popping infographics with Google Drawings

• 20 Canva templates to use in class tomorrow (see #16 for a link to loads of templates!)

• The Great Big Icon Board template

• The Sequential Icon Board template

• The Treasure Map Icon Board template

Create a quiz for classmates

Sure our students know how to take a quiz but do they know how to make one? Creating good questions and writing those multiple choice answer options is a great way for them to dive into the content and look at it from a new perspective.  A fun way to get take this further is to take the multiple choice questions from different quizzes and create a class Kahoot.

Have students create short or long answer questions too and a simple rubric to go along with it. What would a 1 point answer look like? What about a 4 point answer? You might be surprised at how good their assessments would be!

Suggested tool: Google Forms and Kahoot

Resources:

• Applied Digital Skills lesson: Create a quiz in Google Forms

• Game show classroom: Comparing Kahoot!, Quizizz, Quizlet Live and Gimkit

Make a Game

While playing games is a popular and enjoyable way to engage with others, designing a game can be a fantastic way to demonstrate understanding.  Having your students create their own game using the content you studied is a great end of unit activity. 

Students can create a game digitally using one of the game board templates below OR have students use supplies found around the classroom to create a physical game with cardboard, markers, cards, dice, chips etc. The only limit is their imagination!

Suggested tool: Google Slides or PPT, Genially, Paper/Markers/Cardboard/Dice

Resources:

• Game design in the classroom: 8 steps to get started

• Genially game templates