Got Ants in Your Pants? GoNoOdle!

My mom texted me several weeks ago to say she had seen this new brain break website called gonoodle.com.  I decided to check it out.  Verdict: It's cool!  For those of you who don't know...

A brain break is a short movement activity that helps to refocus students during the school day.

This entire site is dedicated to brain breaks of various kinds--focusing, energizing, and calming.  You create a free account and then either use the demo teacher mode to play or enter your classes information and select a "champ." 

Since I have multiple classes, it has let me enter all of them and I appreciate that.  You press the "play" button and are then taken to a huge selection of brain breaks.  They have brain breaks that students are familiar with, such as Continental Drift (Ice Age), Happy (Pharrell Williams), and Have Fun Teaching. Other ones that I just discovered, like To The Maximo (kids yoga) and Bodyspell (students use their bodies to spell out sight words).

Some of my classes recognize the program because their classroom teachers use it, but I'm here to spread the word so that more teachers use it.  The more popular this site becomes, the more brain breaks they can distribute.  Every time your class completes a brain break, they receive minutes that go towards "leveling up" and transforming your "champ" into a big, strong creature just like your students are working their brain muscles.


Image from gonoodle.com

Ed Tech Series, Part 2

My district had professional development the Friday we were supposed to come back from winter break (we had a weeks worth of snow days after).  I was asked to present about technology.  There were so many topics that could be discussed, but I reigned myself in and stuck with educational websites to integrate into the classroom.  Being very selective is HARD when it comes to all the sites I want to share with teachers.  At the same time thinking, no one is going to show up to my presentation.

I prepared my presentation during break using Prezi.  Being the overacheiver that I am, I was giving my Prezi some pizzaz.  Since one of the resources I suggest to teachers is Prezi, I figured I should show them what it can do.  I edited the Prezi multiple times and became frustrated when one of my fancy tricks would NOT work.  But, whatever...that just meant I showed the teacher what ended up being a goldmine to them (that I'll talk about later).

I have learned several things along the way about presenting.  First, technology is intimidating to those who don't use it.  It took me years to wrap that around my techy brain.  Second, the time factor.  Yes, its hard to think of "when am I going to fit this in?" Also, you need time during the professional development to play around with the new information. Third, how do I start? Just dive right in.  If it blows up in your face, reevaluate or move on to something else...mistakes are proof your learning.

I categorized my presentation for teachers and gave real-life examples of how I used the sites.  I start small and only have one grade use a site or use the same site for multiple grades, but they all answer a question on the same page.  I take the time to create accounts for my students on sites I think they will benefit from and that they can use multiple times.  I let students explore certain sites before I begin teaching how to use content on the site.  Students are eager beavers when on the computer.

I'm giving the link to the bookmarking site that has let me curate a great amount of sites for students to use.  Whenever my students need to travel someplace specific, I tell them to go to our library's Only2Clicks page.  It's been my favorite site to use for these purposes.

Here is the link to my Prezi on educational websites, too.

Enjoy!  And if you have any questions, ask away!