Summer is for reflection, and setting up online accounts

Hello! and Welcome to my blog! I am very excited to be blogging again. I did not blog last year, except for a few attempts early in the year and I did not make time for it after that. I missed blogging so much! You can find my original blog here. I'm in a new position from that blog and a new district, so I'm making this a fresh start! I hope you enjoy!

Over this summer I have been teaching at the Chemic Challange! A summer school program that is designed for students to experience problem-solving and critical thinking beyond standard instruction. It's a 4-week program that includes art, robotics, Breakout Edu, cooking, and more. I taught lessons on using Ozobots and we did a GooseChase! I have also been taking 3 online classes, which I am almost done with, woohoo!! I presented at a conference "Techtastic II", attended a few trainings, and I'm going to MCTM Conference next week! It's my first MCTM conference and I'm really looking forward to it. I missed out on MACUL this year and realized that I need to be there next year. It re-energizes me each year and I didn't realize how much it brought out my passion.

Every summer I spend time reflecting over the systems and tools I used last year, make changes moving forward, and create the accounts that I will need on any online accounts. That way it is ready once school starts. I also email the links out to students and parents once I have my class lists, with an introductory video I make and have a handout version ready to go for the open house as well. I'm still working on this but will post when it's ready.

As of right now I plan on using the following tools and have made class accounts for each of my classes... Bonus, all of these are FREE with the exception of Moodle and I do pay for Quizlet (but you don't need to). Truth be told I made some of them before school got out once I was given my schedule (why put off what can be done today):

Flippity

This is an amazing tool that lets you randomly choose groups, create a tournament bracket, has an amazing jeopardy template, and other learning games as well. They continue to add more things and expand. It's a tool I use weekly.

Delta Math 

This is a great tool that provides practice on a wide variety of math concepts. This is perfect for a high school math classroom. I have used it in both Algebra I and Geometry and will be using it in Algebra II this year.

Remind 

Remind is a tool that lets you communicate directly with parents and students through email and text messages.

Quizlet

I did purchase the teacher account for Quizlet. I like to be able to upload my own pictures and have student data to look at. I use this tool often for review and in-class activities. Also, for Quizlet I only create one class for each prep. So I have one Algebra I and one Algebra II. This has met my needs for now. If at any point I find the need to have an individual one for each course I will make those.

Khan Academy

Google Classroom

Moodle 

This will be my first year using Moodle. Our district just updated the site and is investing in the creation of blended learning courses. I'm excited to learn the software. I have started building my courses for this. I have made a page for each chapter/unit of study, I have uploaded a link to my syllabus (a Google Doc that I am still working on), and other links that will be relevant to them.

Some other tools I'm exploring but haven't finalized and would love feedback on are:
Edulastic

ThatQuiz

I use other tech tools as well that don't require student logins or joining a class. I use Kahoot, Quizizz, Desmos, Graspable Math, GeoGebra, Screencastify,  and so many more that it would take me hours to think of them all, and I would still forget some. I will be highlighting the tools that I use each week in my classroom and be sharing any activities that I create.