Monthly Archives: July 2016

//July

Sabbatical

Usually only college professors get to take sabbaticals, but Montana's 2016 teacher of the year, Jessica Anderson, thinks that K-12 teachers should have the same opportunities.  She argues that a break from the classroom can help teachers develop new skills, improve their teaching abilities, and provide them with a fresh outlook on K-12 education.  You [...]

By | 2017-09-12T11:09:40-05:00 July 28th, 2016|ePortal|0 Comments

Tool Tip Tuesday: Science Bits

Continuing the science theme from last week (can you guess what my favorite subject was?) is Science Bits.  Science Bits is designed to be a complete standalone science curriculum for middle schoolers that aligns with state science standards.  Lessons are a combination of videos, virtual experiments, interactives, and texts that allow students to learn the [...]

By | 2017-09-12T11:10:00-05:00 July 26th, 2016|ePortal|0 Comments

Visual Standards

Every classroom has some variation of the laminated cards that all begin with "The student will be able to..." or "The student can..."  Often these standards are written in confusing language that can be hard for students to understand and apply to what they are learning.  Sargy Letuchy found this problem compounded by the fact [...]

By | 2017-09-12T11:10:19-05:00 July 21st, 2016|ePortal|0 Comments

Tool Tip Tuesday: Anatomy Arcade

Anatomy Arcade provides students with a great resource to learn about the various systems of the body.  Two big games, Whack a Bone and Poke a Muscle, allow students to practice very in-depth labeling of the skeletal and muscular systems (because accuracy is important and some bones and muscles can be small, it is best [...]

By | 2017-09-12T11:11:21-05:00 July 19th, 2016|ePortal|0 Comments

Open Educational Resources

All this talk about Amazon Inspire has gotten us thinking at MXN.  What are your favorite places to look for OERs?  What do you wish you could find more of? Are there improvements you would make to your favorite OER aggregator?

By | 2016-07-13T11:24:14-05:00 July 14th, 2016|ePortal|0 Comments

Tool Tip Tuesday: Magnetic Poetry

If you have fond memories of playing with magnetic poetry but not so fond memories of cleaning it up later, online magnetic poetry is the tool for you.  The people behind those magnetized parts of speech have created an online application that allows you to drag and drop combinations of words into various types of [...]

By | 2017-09-12T11:11:44-05:00 July 12th, 2016|ePortal|0 Comments

Chromebook Security Issues

Teachers and administrators are realizing that allowing students to take their Chromebooks home is creating a whole host of privacy and security related concerns.  Peter Martini, a cyber-security expert, has recommended a few things that parents and teachers can do to keep kids safe while using school-provided devices at home.  Using the ePortal system removes [...]

By | 2017-09-12T11:12:15-05:00 July 7th, 2016|ePortal|0 Comments

Tool Tip Tuesday: Free Rice

Looking for something kind of like IXL but don't want to pay the hefty price tag?  Give Free Rice a try.  Run by the World Food Programme, Free Rice quizzes users on a variety of subjects while donating a small amount of food for each question answered correctly.  (Make sure you can view ads on [...]

By | 2017-09-12T11:12:31-05:00 July 5th, 2016|ePortal|0 Comments