ICT tools

Break the Code themed lessons

I started this year figuring out use of google forms for Break the Code themed lessons. I’ve been seeing such lessons by fellow teachers on IG/ FB and I guess it’s finally time for me to try in class. Better late than never, right?

One of the advantages of gamification of lessons is that it increases students’ motivation. This was the most evident during my lessons, because students took much faster time to complete the questions compared to paper-pen approach. I mean naturally most of us are competitive, right?

Having an interesting storyline helps too, for example by having role play for students to be on a challenge or mission. With this students are motivated to work towards the end goal.

The downside of this is time for planning such lessons. It is quite time consuming, but once you get the hang of it and everything comes together, trust me, it’ll be worth it. Especially after hearing from your students how they enjoyed it very much and when’s the next escape room/ break the code lesson 😉

Here are the 2 escape room/ break the code themed lessons I’ve done:

Save the animals

Let’s Discover Plants

Camscanner App

Camscanner is one of the apps I always recommend to fellow science teachers cuz our resources are diagrams heavy. One of the best scanning app. It can even auto-remove shadow and it’s auto and magic colour setting is amazing! I’m rarely disappointed with the outcome. Major plus point- there’s no watermark for their jpg files. It’s also convenient cuz you can share it via many options after that, including dropbox and email.

Ok, go download Camscanner now!

Linoit for Collaborative Learning

I’ve prepared slides for a sharing with colleagues tomorrow. It’s up here now so that other educators can benefit from it too.

Linoit appears as simply just virtual stickies. Students post their comments, ideas etc, then teacher open up canvas for all to see – and that’s it. Done with lesson. Honestly, that’s my initial impression of Linoit.

Until, I have to conduct a sharing on using Linoit. Sounds easy, right? Just a screenshot of the various tools and how each works. However, it was not as straightforward as that. The instruction given to me was that… I should not simply share how to use Linoit but how to use Linoit for collaborative learning.

It was quite a challenge for me. Can Linoit really be used for collaborative learning? But after some google search, reviewing some public canvas, reading up on collaborative learning, Thinking Routine, Cooperative learning strategies etc, I was mind-blown. The capacity Linoit has for a student-centred lesson is quite impressive. In fact, as I was doing up the slides, I also reflected on the lessons I had this year and thought of how I could have use Linoit to manage it better. Perhaps next year 🙂

Hope you guys find this useful! Oh and the best part? I’ve prepared a guide for teachers and students too! Click here for the guide.

Download link: Linoit for Collaborative Learning