Ditch That Textbook Podcast :: Education, teaching, edtech :: #DitchPod

I'm at the TCEA conference in Austin, Texas! There's a lot to learn here. In this episode, I share several of my key takeaways from the first day.

Many times, when we see the cool things that teachers are doing with Google products, we might assume that the same things can't be done with Microsoft. But that's not necessarily the case! Scott Titmas Share some of his favorite tips and tricks for making Microsoft products work for you in the classroom.

teachers love to have choices in their professional development as much as students love to have choices in their learning! In this episode, Stacy Saia shares how her school district is giving teachers choice and how they learn professionally -- and how they are reaping great rewards from it.

So many of our students are fascinated with social media. any mention of one of their favorite apps can instantly grab their attention. We can pull elements of social media into our learning activities to engage those students! In a recent post on the Ditch That Textbook blog, We shared several templates and websites that can help you accomplish that!

In so many schools around the United States and the world, we see a wide variety of native languages. Providing support to students and their families in their own language can pay great dividends in student learning. The Microsoft translator app lets educators connect with students and their families in their native languages and a wide variety of circumstances. In this episode, I share four places where it can strengthen family communication and instruction.

Understanding how the brain works and learns can help us teach and our students learn with more power. Understanding that each student's brain doesn't learn the same way is important, too. In Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond, she shares how we can understand culture, how it is wired into our students' brains, and how we can reflect that in our teaching.

When we learn how the brain prefers to learn, We can learn smarter instead of harder. I got so much valuable information and insight from the book Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zarretta Hammond. in it, she talks about how we can teach in a way that recognizes all students in our classes and optimizes learning for their brains. in this episode, I share her insights on the three phases of information processing.

When students take activities home to do, sometimes they struggle. Sometimes the parents struggle! To add a layer of assistance to your activities, you might try what Nate Ridgway calls the Flipgrid 5. It's an easy way to add a short instructional video to paper-based assignments that you give your students. You can learn more about it on his website, TeachingFromTheRidge.com.

Lots of students do media projects when they need music or sound effects to make them sound their best. The YouTube Audio Library is a great source of downloadable songs and sounds.

Quizizz is one of several formative assessment tools that teachers are using all around the world. After loading it up recently, I noticed a few newer features that really impressed me. in this episode, I'll tell you what those features are and why you should be excited about them, too.