H5P.org is a free (and easy) website for creating interactive online materials. For many of the activities, students can check their answers and get instant feedback.
These objects are perfect for increasing student engagement, and they can be easily embedded into your Schoology page, linked from Seesaw or embedded into a website. I am really excited about the possibilities for using this site!
What can you create?
See the images below for samples of what you can create (or view a complete list). You can click on any of the examples on the H5P site to try them out and see if they would work for your class.
The H5P site includes tutorials for how to create each type of activity.
Embed the object into Schoology
To do this, first get the embed code from H5P. Then create a new page in Schoology and embed the code onto the page.
Link from Seesaw
To do this, get the URL from within the embed code in H5P. Then copy just the web address inside the quotation marks. Add this link to Seesaw (and include recorded directions if you'd like).
By using the Flippity Add-On for Google Sheets, you can quickly create a variety of fun learning tools and activities that students can use on your SMARTboard or screen and within Schoology or Seesaw.
You can create the activities using the directions provided on the website or you can install the Flippity add-on directly into your Google Sheets for even easier creation. See this 3 minute tutorial for how to add and use Flippity in Sheets. The tutorial includes directions for how to link your creations into Schoology and Seesaw for students to access and use them.
Google Keep is a great organizational tool for creating notes and task lists. If you haven't had a chance to explore Keep, see this 2 minute tutorial. NEW: Google recently integrated Keep with Docs. This means you can open Keep notes in a side window and drag and drop your Keep notes directly into Docs. See TechCrunch for step-by-step directions.
Classroom Integration Ideas
Grading Comments: Teachers and students can create lists of commonly used comments in Google Keep and then copy/paste the comments as needed into students' Google Docs. This can be done aspart of teacher and/or student peer reviews. Click here for step-by-step directions.
Research Notes: Students can use Google Keep to collect and organize notes for a research project and then drag and drop those notes into their Google Doc..
Assignment & Project Notes: Students can create and share notes and task lists to manage their individual and collaborative projects.
In December, Seesaw added the ability for teachers and students to label pictures and drawings. These text labels are great for having students sort and identify. If you haven't used labels yet, here is a link to a short labeling tutorial.
Some of us have asked about the option of adding pictures that students can move like the labels. The Seesaw engineers are taking this suggestion under consideration. But for now, you and your students can use Emojis in the labels to serve as pictures. See examples below (reminder: students can also record themselves as they move the emojis to explain their thinking).
Hold students accountable for watching the videos you assign! This tool allows you to embed questions into a video, disable students' ability to skip to the end of a video without watching it and view analytics for which students watched the video and how well they answered the questions.
Videos can be embedded directly into Schoology or linked from Seesaw. Students can login with Google to be added directly to your class!
This is a simple, powerful screen recording tool for creating screencast recordings on a Mac or PC. The free version will meet the needs of most teachers. The paid version is $15 per year and allows for storage and deeper editing of videos. There is a quick tutorial on the site's main webpage.
This is similar to Screencast-O-Matic, but it works on a Chromebook. It's a free Chrome extension that you can install on your Chrome toolbar. Because it works on a Chromebook, it's a great tool for your students to use. You can empower them to create tutorials of their own! This tool was detailed more completely in a previous tech tip as well.
If you are using Seesaw, you can record your instructions with the video recording feature built into this tool. For early learners, it is helpful to print a QR code to the video and post it in the room. Students scan the QR and are taken directly to your directions. This is a great way to clone yourself for station work!
Seesaw and Schoology both provide tools for tracking progress toward mastery. Using these built-in features is a great way to gather and review data about your student's learning progress.
Schoology Mastery Menu
By attaching standards to test questions, assignments, discussions or rubrics, teachers can track progress under the Mastery menu. Students can also review their own mastery progress.
Progress is color coded for quick review.
Multiple assessments can be aligned to the same standard (note number in corner).
State Standards can be used, but teachers can also create "custom" standards of their own.
By creating skills in Seesaw, teachers can assess anything uploaded to Seesaw on a 1-4 star scale. These ratings are attached to each individual student item and are only visible to the teacher. Teachers can see a full class view or filter the view by student, subject or skill. Like Schoology, the levels are color coded for quick review.
