Mel's Teaching Corner

Interacting with your students in a virtual class can be difficult if you do not have the right tools. In fact, this is a common complaint I see among teachers. For example, Zoom is a great resource to meet with students, but you can only share a screen, use the polling tool, and use the chat. The Zoom resources are meant for webinars not teaching a class. Also, there are resources, such as Blackboard Collaborate, which allow you to use whiteboard tools, polling tools, chat, app sharing, etc..., but great options like this cost money. What do you do when you want to interact with your students for free? Also, how do you interact with your students using platforms, such as Zoom? One option that you could use is  https://www.whiteboard.chat/ . In this platform, you have access to the following: Polling Tools: You can ask students practice questions. This allows you quickly check how students are doing with the material. Do you need to spend more time on a certain topic before moving ...

Education Reforms Fail Reforms continue to fail in schools, but to change these failures, educators need to personalize their classrooms, so students can get excited about what they are learning, so the conversation continues outside of the classroom (Watson, 2014). One way that this can be done is through gamification. Although the term gamification is often confused with games, there are differences. “Games-based learning... uses exiting games to enhance the learning process” (Ling, 2018, p.142), such as Minecraft and World of Warcraft (Ling, 2018) whereas gamification applies “...game mechanics and game design techniques to non-game environments... to help achieve...goals...,” and "...to guide learners through the content without changing the content” (Boskic & Hu, 2015, p.741). “The needs of modern learners have changed in accordance with the development of technology and the evolution of the learning environment” (Kocadere & Çağlar, 2018, p.1). Gamification has made h...

Do you ever have an idea that you want to implement as a simulation in your class, but you can't find what you want online? If this is the case, you can create your own "Simple Simulations" for any subject. You could create a simulation for solving math problems, you could create a story with moving parts, you could create a virtual lab, etc... The options are endless. For example, check out the Chemistry videos below to see what can be done. To be able to create your own simulations, you will need to start with a plan.  What do you want on each slide? What text will go on each slide? Do you want a moving part on each slide? Will there be any links on each slide? Once your game plan is developed, you will need to create GIF's for each moving component you will want in your simulation. If you are unfamiliar with how to create a GIF, you will want to check out the video below. Once you have your GIF's created, you will need to add your GIF's to the correct slide...