We hope these resources will prove helpful to you as you and your students are learning in new ways. We are always looking for new ones! Send any resource suggestions for this page to octeorg@gmail.com.
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Preparing to teach online
Getting Started! from Education Closet
This is a free webinar and guide book with tips for getting started with online learning. It comes from Education Closet, a long time advocate for arts integration in the classroom. The webinar has really great information and suggestions.
Google Hangouts Meet
Many districts are using this for delivering online lessons. This is your link to helpful tutorial videos on all aspects.
Using Google Drive App to Create A Google Doc From Any Text
This YouTube video walks you through the steps of taking a picture using your camera phone and turning the jpeg into a Google Doc.
Zoom for Teachers Tutorial
If your district is not using Google Hangouts Meet, you may want to give Zoom a try. It’s free and they are instituting more advanced safety protocols.
Student Engagement
Padlet
Use this web-based app for giving students an opportunity to interact with their learning and each other. This is an online bulletin board. You can pose a question and have students respond on sticky notes. Notes can be color coded and categorized.
FlipGrid and Seesaw
These apps are two other ways that students can respond to the lessons you are teaching in a video format. Both are easy to use and can be linked to your Google Classroom.
Books, texts, and research
Epic
This organization is providing free remote access through June 30, 2020. They offer more than 40,000 books and videos for kids 12 and under. This is a great source of fiction and nonfiction books for your students. You can upload your roster for Google Classroom.
CommonLit
This literacy website is geared toward third through twelfth grades. You can access rich fictional and informational texts and share assignments via Google Classroom and/or by using a class code. Students can use the website to read a variety of texts, answer questions, pose questions, and analyze with online tools. And all of the texts can be easily translated into a student’s native language. Students can also use the website independently to read the text that interests them the most.
CommonLit also offers a text set collection. These text sets can be assigned in their entirety to help students continue to build knowledge and vocabulary, even if they’re reading independently at home. Other sources of text sets are Achieve the Core and the Kentucky Text Set Project. Another helpful use for CommonLit is their Related Books filter, which allows you to assign additional knowledge-building texts to support instruction for many popular full-length texts.
Newsela
This informational text website is focused on sharing current and past news articles for second grade through twelfth grade. Newsela is currently giving teachers full access to all features of the website for FREE.
Students may access the Lexile-leveled text via Google Classroom and/or by using a class code to read what interests them. The text can be translated into a student’s native language. They can also use Google Maps to locate where the event took place and to find out more about the location. National Geographic Kids is another website that can be paired with Newsela to support student learning. A similar website is ReadWorks.
Scholastic
This publisher is offering free learn at home activities for students from pre-K through grade 9.
6 Good Websites that Provide Open Digital Textbooks for Teachers from EducatorsTechnology.com
This is a list featuring some popular platforms that provide open digital textbooks. Textbooks are arranged into different categories and content areas. Some of the textbooks are available for free download in various formats others can only be read online. There are also platforms where you can pay a reasonable fee to buy or rent new or used textbooks.
International Children's Digital Library (ICDL)
The ICDL Foundation's goal is to build a collection of books that represents outstanding historical and contemporary books from throughout the world. Ultimately, the Foundation aspires to have every culture and language represented so that every child can know and appreciate the riches of children's literature from the world community.
Oregon School Library Information System (OSLIS)
The Oregon School Library Information System is a K-12 website providing access to quality licensed databases within an information literacy framework. It is designed for Oregon students and teachers, maintaining the school library at the heart of student research.
Digital media
Ed Puzzle
This site provides a great way to find videos that are already made to include in your lessons. They can be trimmed and you can insert questions at various points. You have the option of multiple choice, true/false, or short answer. Grading is easy and they can be assigned through Google Classroom. It can be used for practice and review of things like punctuation or elements of argument writing. This is a link to some tutorial videos on how to use it.
PBS LearningMedia
Free signup for resources in grades pre-K - 12 for Science, Math, Social Studies and ELA. They are all set up to load directly to your Google Classroom.
The Teaching Channel
This site is a great source of how to videos. If you want to try out something new like a fishbowl or Socratic seminar, you can find videos of teachers in action using those strategies.
Assessment
MasteryConnect
Teachers can use MasteryConnect to plan formative assessments and track student progress on standards. The free version gives teachers access to the searchable assessment bank. You can search by standard. Teachers use this to help brainstorm and build their curricula. They can also track their students' progress using online tools. Reports can be printed and shared with students and families, keeping everyone in the loop.
