Mrs Hahn's Library Connections

  This week's tech tool is Gimkit --a fun interactive game-based learning tool for classroom use. One of my favorite parts of this tool is that it was created by a high school student who wanted more interactive fun ways to learn and review knowledge. So this is basically created for students BY a student!  I would use this tool with students grades 6-12, for formative assessments--checking to see what students know to guide further instruction. This would be a great way to start a class to review previous day or see what they know before instruction, or could be a fun exit ticket activity.  It reminds me a bit of Kahoot (another fun web tool for student engagement) but has more popular gameshow type interactives that might be a fun way to change up how students play and retain knowledge. Teacher basic accounts are free, but varying levels with a cost are available that allow creating your own questions and quiz sets. Students can also register for their own accounts to create quiz

  I'm always on the look for multimedia components that can engage students in discussion or inquiry and this site looks to have all that! ClassHook was a "best of" website recommendation by AASL and has been reviewed by Common Sense Media as a great tool for engaging students in critical thinking. The whole premise of this website is a curated library of movie and TV show clips. So often a small snippet of a video will demonstrate a concept, or be the perfect hook for launching a lesson, but I don't have the video, and now I'm very thoughtful of copyright and fair use guidelines. Never fear, ClassHook not only has browsable subjects and genre areas, but they also curate by major standards, AND there is a section on "copyright"! This site states that they host the video content on YouTube and use Content ID system to verify that the small quantity of video clip is usable and copyright permissible. Having someone else do the work of getting permission is

  I have been a fan of the Library of Congress (LOC) for a long time--the size of the collection, the beauty of the building, the systems and structure of item delivery (conveyer belts, need I say more?). And that doesn't even get into the beauty of the online system. There are a gazillion (it's a real number, I checked) resources on the site. The US Copyright Office is even linked in the top menu bar!  The resources available range in content and original format. There are collections and ways to teach students about topics in multiple ways, including original audio and video pieces.. The filters and searching capabilities are amazing, and everything I have checked include citation information for the three major formats (Chicago, APA and MLA). This is website is solid gold for teaching primary documents and should be a top recommended source for student research and UDL lesson plans.