Comet Tech

Check out this week's 90 Second Chromebook Tip & Trick on organizing your Google Waffle.

This week is a site that I stumbled upon. When I was in the classroom, I used as much pop culture references as possible to connect my class material to the subject that we were currently teaching. This was a way that I could hook my students to continuing to learn about the topic at hand, while also consuming media in a lens of full understanding. This goes beyond the Schoolhouse Rock videos that most of our kids have seen.  I cannot tell you the number of times that Family Guy and The Simpsons were brought up in my classes. Enter Classhook . Classhook is a site that collects clips from YouTube and Vimeo that teachers look at and use, and applies it to a database that we can search for by standard or topic. It is incredibly cool. One of the best parts? Your students do not need accounts, only you. Most of the clips are readily available elsewhere, but this site organizes them for busy teachers. The site is continuing to grow, with it just starting recently and growing in popularity

Grasshopper is a relatively new app from Google's Area 120. It is available on both the Android and iOS operating systems. In this app, you complete challenges through writing bits of JavaScript.  I like to compare it to Duolingo, the popular language learning app. It is free and allows you to work on the puzzles at your own pace. This is a step up from the Blockly coding that has been popularized by Hour of Code and Code.org. The best part is, you get nearly instant feedback and multiple tries to master the material. While this will not get you a Silicon Valley coding job by itself, it will definitely start you down a path that allows you to start growing your coding skills.  It is really worth checking out. Learn more at here .

This week, I am highlighting a tool that I have used in the past and have been impressed with. This tool, coggle.it , is a freemium (has paid features) mindmapping tool that you can use in your classroom today. The intuitive design, easy features, and free version make it something that has value right away. Students when participating in the writing process or the brainstorm process need a place to gather their ideas. Coggle, a site that does not require a log in to work on someone else's mind map, is a free tool that let's our students organize their thoughts. I would recommend checking it out!