Online Resources

I decided to write this post about some of the online resources that I use in the classroom to make life a little easier. There are many teacher who do not use these, but I think they make scheduling and planning easier for me and wanted to share them with you.  Some of them I use to help manage paperwork, some I use for parent communication, and others I use with my students in the classroom.  They all serve different purposes and can help during the school year if you are interested.

 

SignUpGenius.com is a great resource for any appointment needs.  I use this at the beginning of the year to schedule my parent teacher conferences.  It allows me to enter parent contact info and it saves it for me to use for the year.  I then create a signup for when I am available for conference dates and times and the parents can sign up for a time that works for them. The site will email them a reminder two days before their appointment to remind them about it.  If parents need to change a time they signed up for, they can also do this on the site.  I do not have to worry about it, I just need to check the sign up to know who is coming in for a conference. The site will also email me to alert me when a parent signs up or changes anything on my signup.

I also use this site to ask for parent volunteers and donations throughout the year.  I try to make one monthly, but I have also made them quarterly.  It just depends on the needs for the year. 

Brainpopjr.com is a wonderful site that allows me to show videos to my students about different subjects taught throughout the year.  The students LOVE Moby the robot and they are able to get the information through a video as well as me teaching it to them in class.  After the video, there are quizzes you can take to see if the students understood the lesson.This site does cost money, but it is a wonderful resource to use in the classroom.

My team and I also use Google Docs. for pacing our year.  We have a calendar for each month of school and we add everything that we need to cover within the calendar year.  We add our homework words, subject units, and any special days/holidays.  This is nice because the whole team can access it and make changes to it if needed, but also allows us to stay on the same page in planning and pacing. 

Myon.com is a great resource for online books.  I use this a lot when we are in the computer lab, or in the classroom to have the students listen to treading.  I also like to use this resource when we are doing special reading units.  They have a lot of different books and levels on the site.  

Dreambox is a new resource for us as of last year.  We got all the students an account in the school and it is amazing!  It allows the students to play games and do activities that is at their own level.  it takes them through different lessons with the support of game playing and then the students can earn coins for the levels they clear.  If a level is too hard, the program takes them to a lower level of the lesson and if it is too easy it takes them to ta higher level.  The students LOVE this program and we use it in the computer lab and in the classroom.

These are just some of the resources that I use during the school year.  I use them along with other resources and lessons.  Our county has paid for accounts for most of them, but they have made planning a lot easier in the classroom.