I browsed what I could through Common Sense Media, but unless I did something incorrectly, it seems there is a charge. You can have a 6 month free trial, but from what I could tell then you are committed to pay for a year after that.
Anyway, I did go into Graphite and was looking around and noticed Noodle Tools which is great because, on Friday I worked at the district office to write our Research writing unit on Biographies. We had explored Noodle Tools as an option for our students to create their bibliographies for research. Our Library Media Services are on board to make it easy and available to our kids. They have also encouraged each building to purchase a subscription to Factcite. I have been in touch with our Media Specialist this weekend and she is going to purchase it for our building. It's a great site for students to find vetted materials for research topics.
I also tried https://www.quizalize.com ( Quialize) this week. Similar to Kahoot and Socrative. It is similar to Kahoot in that it can be a race against other students and is timed. Similar to Socrative in that the questions and responses are right on each student's device. There is no looking up at projection and then back to device to choose answer.
My kids liked things about both, but agreed they didn't want to do Kahoot it again.
I taught a lesson on Digital Citizenship using feedback tools on our persuasive writing. We had a great discussion about how to use the comment tool in Google Docs to provide quality and helpful feedback on a peer's writing. I used a powerpoint that my friend and I worked on together. It gives kids specific things to look for in each other's writing and how to give correct feedback that is useful to the writer.
The readings and videos about Flipping the Classroom are intriguing. My only obstacle would be that not all students have access to devices at home or access to internet at home. I am going to try to create one and just have my kids watch it during work time and see how it works for the next day's lesson. Will probably have to try it next week.
