PPS Instructional Technology

Have you heard of Flippity? Yes, well, read on for some more coolness! No, well, go check it out then, Flippity.net .  (NOTE: Read to the end to get the best surprise!) Flippity uses Google Spreadsheets to store information, like student names, questions and answers, timelines, spelling words, and more. Then, Flippity displays that information in very visually interactive ways, such as a quiz show, flashcards, and crosswords, etc. Flippity makes information dynamic! Today, I want to write to you about the Random Name Picker. The basic Random Name Picker displays your student names in the form of a Spinner that, when clicked, will randomly choose a student. Need more students? Return to the linked spreadsheet and add them. Student drops? Spreadsheet to the rescue! However, the fun begins when you click on the tabs at the top of the name picker. You'll see lineups and groups and teams and more... Below, you will see a screenshot of the Groups of 2 and a scree...

YouTube has become a household name throughout the country and the world.  According to YouTube , "YouTube has over a billion users — almost one-third of all people on the Internet — and every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views."  That's a lot of videos!  Because of the vast quantity of content on YouTube, people - especially young people - turn to YouTube for entertainment, as well as to learn new skills.  If you ask your students to research how to do a task, the first place they will look is, most likely, YouTube.  I was working with Michal VandenBerg's third-grade class at Lake Center on their Genius Hour projects last week.  The students were researching everything from how to do snowboarding tricks or playing the piano,  to how to design and build a video game.  Each of the students was, at one time or another, on YouTube, watching videos explaining how to do the task or skill they w...