Corkboard Connections Now On Teaching Resources

I'm excited to announce that my Teaching Resources website and my Corkboard Connections blog are now together on LauraCandler.com! The two sites were formerly on separate platforms, but when Teaching Resources was redesigned earlier this year, a blog was integrated into the site. All of my Corkboard Connections posts were moved to the blog category on Teaching Resources, and all new posts will be published there. I guess that means this is officially the last Corkboard Connections post!
 

How to Navigate the New Teaching Resources

The new Teaching Resources website is MASSIVE, so I organized the content into categories to make it easy to find what you need. Click over to the home page and then use the menu links at the top of the site for navigation. The new site is mobile-friendly and the pages will resize to fit your device, so what you see might be slightly different from the image above. Here's an overview of what you'll find when you click on each menu link.

Home: No matter where you are on the Teaching Resources site, clicking the Home link will take you back to the main page at www.lauracandler.com.
Blog: Laura's Blog is where you'll find blog posts that were originally published here on Corkboard Connections as well as all new blog posts.
Resources: Here's where you'll find my virtual File Cabinet with hundreds of freebies. My professional development pages can also be found here.   
TpT Store: If you're looking for one of my teacher products, click this link to go directly to my TpT store.
Freebies: Click the Freebies tab and sign up for my Candler's Classroom Connections newsletter. You'll get access to over 75 of my very best freebies for teachers!

Quick Links to Popular Corkboard Connections Posts

Looking for a specific post? Here are a dozen of my most popular Corkboard Connections posts from the last few years. Click the titles below to find them on my new blog.

• 10 Ways to Power Up Any Lesson and Maximize Learning
• 5 Math Games Every Classroom Needs to Play
• 8 Strategies to Motivate Kids to Love Problem Solving
• Classroom Awards Make Kids Feel Special!
• Creating the Tallest Cup Tower: A STEM Challenge
• Exploring Causes and Effects of Behavior
• Fun with Customary Measurement Conversions
• How to Introduce Decimals with Base Ten Blocks
• Seek & Spell Challenge – Word Work That WORKS!
• Teaching Kids How to Have REAL Discussions
• Teaching Order of Operations: No-fail Strategies That Work
• Tips for Teaching with Math Games

If you're looking for something that's not listed above, head over to my new blog and use the category tags in the sidebar or the search feature at the bottom of the site to search for them.

Finally, I want to thank the folks at SonicSEO for creating my awesome new website! I'm thrilled with the mobile-friendly features and the way the blog and website were integrated seamlessly into one mobile-friendly site. They worked incredibly hard to transfer hundreds of pages and thousands of images from my blog and website over to the new platform, and I love the results!

There are still a few broken links and bugs on the new site, but I'm doing my best to correct those errors as I find them. If you do experience a problem, I would be grateful if you would report it on this Google Doc form so that I can look into the issue. Thanks!

40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club Membership Giveaway

I've been raving about Angela Watson's 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club for years because I truly believe that it's a life-changing resource. The 40 HTW Club only accepts new members twice a year, and I'm excited to share that it will open again very soon. Membership isn't free, but it's worth every penny of your investment. And if you're lucky, you might even be able to join for free! Read on to learn more about the 40HTW Club and how to enter this membership giveaway.

Google Classroom Management Tips

Guest Blog Post by Rhoda Toynbee 

Using Google Classroom can streamline the tasks of assigning, collecting, grading, and returning student work. It saves hours of time and eliminates those dreaded piles of papers that need grading (you know the ones that mock you from the corner of your desk). One major bonus is of digital work and management is that you only need access to the internet to work on assigning and grading. Your huge teacher bag full of papers and workbooks will start collecting dust.

You will need to establish a routine for assigning and grading digital work. It can be just as daunting and overwhelming as traditional grading if you don’t have a method for wading through it all. Google Classroom is a tool, just like your grade book or textbook. How you use it will determine your success with it.

Teachers, Help MrOwl Help YOU!

Wouldn't it be awesome to find a free tech tool for creating  collections of online resources, photos, and documents all in one place? Look no further! Welcome to MrOwl, a new platform that makes it easy for teachers to search for online resources and save them, upload photos and documents, organize resources by topic, share them with others, and so much more!

I discovered MrOwl last year when the founders, Becky and Arvind Raichur, asked me to review MrOwl and share my feedback about how to make the platform more useful for educators. After reviewing the site, I was so impressed that I wrote a blog review and developed a webinar to introduce MrOwl to educators.

To be clear, MrOwl is a public platform, and it wasn’t specifically designed for educational use. However, it does have loads of unique features that make it especially appealing to teachers. Here are a few of the things you can do with MrOwl: 

• Create topic-based collections of resources called "branches"
• Make your branches public or private
• Search for, save, and organize online resources
• Upload photos and documents to your topic branches
• Share collections of resources with others
• Connect and collaborate with others who share your interests

Discover MrOwl Webinar 
One of the best ways to explore the unique features of MrOwl is to watch my webinar for teachers, Discover MrOwl: A Free Tech Tool for Organizing, Sharing, and Collaborating. During the webinar, I explained how to set up your profile and how to use the basic features of the MrOwl platform. But the most important part of the webinar was demonstrating how to use MrOwl in your role as an educational professional and how to use it in your classroom with students.

Teachers, Help MrOwl Help YOU!
One thing that has impressed me about Becky and Arvind is their sincere desire to make MrOwl even more useful for teachers and more appropriate for students. They're excited about MrOwl's potential for classroom use, and they're seeking feedback from educators about how to improve the platform so that it meets YOUR needs. They'd like to add a special MrOwl for Educators FAQ section to their Help menu, but they need help from teachers to make this happen. Here's how you can help:

1. Watch the replay of the Discover MrOwl webinar. Before you watch it, print out the Discover MrOwl webinar handouts so you'll have a place to take notes.


2. Create a free account on MrOwl. When you register, keep in mind that your user name will be visible on the site, so choose one that you won't mind others seeing.


3. Log on to the MrOwl from a computer and explore the platform. Create a few topic branches and subtopics within those branches. Search for online resources and save them. Upload photos or documents to one of your topic branches. Download the MrOwl smart phone app from Apple iTunes or Google Play, and test out the mobile version of the platform. Find Laura Candler on MrOwl and follow me!


4. If you have questions or need help with MrOwl, click on the Help menu in the navigation bar to access the help pages. Were you able to find the answers there? If not, make a note of your questions so that you can ask them during the webinar.


5. How do you envision using MrOwl both professionally and in the classroom with your students? What additional features would make MrOwl even better for educators? What information should be included in the MrOwl for Educators FAQ help menu?   

If this is the first you've heard about MrOwl, read my original blog review to learn a more about this new technology. Then watch the Discover MrOwl webinar and share your feedback with Becky and Arvind. They really do want to hear from you, because they need YOUR help to make MrOwl an even more amazing resource for educators!

Plickers Made Easy with Task Cards

Have you tapped into the power of Plickers yet? Plickers is a free, interactive tech tool that uses printable “paper clickers” instead of clicker devices. Each student is assigned a unique Plickers card that has a black and white image similar to a QR code. The letters A, B, C, and D are written in small print around the edge of the image, with one letter on each side of the card. During the lesson, the teacher displays a multiple-choice or true-false question. Then students hold up their Plickers cards and rotate them to indicate which answer they think is correct. The teacher scans all of the response cards at once, using the Plickers app installed on a mobile device. He or she can instantly see the student responses and assessment data for that question including who has the correct answer and who does not.

Plickers is a terrific formative assessment tool, but it can be used for much more than assessment. In fact, teachers are using it for everything from digital exit tickets to checking attendance or even taking the morning lunch count! The more I learn about the creative ways teachers are  using Plickers, the more I want to spread the word about this amazing free resource!

If you're new to Plickers, I have a suggestion that will save you time and might prevent some of the initial frustration that comes with learning a new program. First, visit the Plickers.com website and sign up for a free account. Take a peek around the site, but before you do anything else, watch my free webinar, Interactive Teaching with Plickers. During that webinar, I explained exactly how to set up your account and how to use Plickers to actively engage your students in the learning process. Teachers who attended the webinar really enjoyed it and said it helped them feel more confident about using the program with their students. Another way to learn about Plickers is to join my free Plickers K-5 Facebook group which is a place for teachers to share ideas, ask questions, and support each other.

Create Plickers Questions with Task Cards 
Plickers is an amazing tech tool for the classroom, but it does have one drawback. The program doesn’t have a database of prepared questions, so users have to enter their own. Most teachers type their questions and answer options manually, but fortunately there’s an easier method. Plickers allows users to import images, so you can upload images of questions instead of typing them. If you’re wondering why this would be helpful, think TASK CARDS! Multiple-choice task cards are like mini quizzes, each having a single question and several answer choices. If you create images from task cards and upload them to Plickers, you won’t have to type the questions OR the answers manually!

Where to Find Task Card Images 
Task cards have been popular for years, so there’s a good chance you already have a collection of them in your classroom. You can easily create images from those task cards using a screen capture tool, but there's another option that might interest you. I love creating resources that save teachers time, so I've started adding ready-to-use task card images to my multiple-choice task card products. I've also been creating brand-new task card sets with images for Plickers.

To test out the process of using task card images with Plickers, download the Basic Units of Customary Measurement Task Cards shown below. This freebie includes 10 printable task cards, 10  task card images, and my Plickers Made Easy with Task Cards tutorial.

Click here to download these free measurement task cards!

If you like this freebie, be sure to check out my other measurement task cards, Customary Measurement Task Cards - Level 1 and Customary Measurement Task Cards - Level 2.     

Free Plickers Made Easy with Task Cards Tutorial
If you don't teach measurement, but you'd like to try using task cards with Plickers, download my free Plickers Made Easy with Task Cards tutorial from TpT and follow my step-by-step directions. This freebie includes 10 task card images to use with the tutorial, and if they're appropriate for your grade level, you can use them to test out the Plickers program with your students.

Plickers Webinar and Task Cards Bundle

After creating several task card products with images for Plickers, I decided to bundle all of them together with the professional development version of my Plickers webinar. Click here to check out the entire Plickers Webinar and Task Cards Growing Bundle on TpT. You can purchase each product in the bundle individually, but you save 30% when you buy the whole bundle. Click here to open a clickable PDF preview that displays all 12 products in the bundle.

By the way, the Plickers Webinar Bundle is a "growing bundle," because I'm still adding new task cards to it. Each time I add another product, the bundle price increases, but anyone who has already purchased it will get the new task cards for free! My next product is a set of Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition task cards that will have written descriptions and visual examples of these processes. I expect to finish them within the next few weeks.

Ready to get started? 
Plickers is a tech tool worth exploring, so jump in and give it a try! But don’t be discouraged if you find the program to be a little tricky at first. Yes, there's a bit of a learning curve when you get started, but after you get comfortable with Plickers, you and your students will love it!