Have you incorporated an author study in your classroom? Are your students tired of the traditional ways of learning about an author? Teachers are always searching for more engaging, exciting ways to engage their students.  I have a wonderful author study activity that is digital and engaging. My Author Adventures are digital, foster reading skills, take your students on virtual field trips, and are fun!

Incorporating an author study into your English Language Arts classroom has many benefits. One way to learn about an author, his/her writing, and their life is including this activity into your English curriculum, whether it is through research or digitally.  Author studies are perfect for culminating projects and connecting students with books. In addition, they help create life-long readers.  When your students become excited about a genre of literature, introducing your students to an author adds to this enthusiasm. I wanted to share with you 5 reasons to do an author study in your classroom.

5 Reasons to Incorporate Author Studies into Your Classroom

An author study develops critical thinking skills. First, students make connections between an author’s life and his/her work.  You students can also relate their life to the author’s life. Most importantly, your students will critically analyze a variety of the author’s work.  Your students will make inferences and draw conclusions.  These skills help develop your students overall reading skills.

An author’s writing becomes mentor writing for your students after an author study. When your students read multiple pieces of a particular author, they will begin to notice the author’s word choice and writing style.  You can have your students attempt to mimic the author’s writing by using the author’s work as mentor texts.  Provide your students with a line from the author. Then, have your students try to write a sentence just like the one you provide. Your students can use this technique to improve their word choice and sentence structure.

Take your students on a virtual field trip with an author study. Many classrooms are digital or have devices within the classroom. This gives students the opportunity to travel all over the globe and visit different places.  You can have your students use Google Earth to see the author’s birth place. Secondly, you can have your students check out a 360 view of a particular place that relates to the author. This brings engagement and the technological aspect into your classroom.

Make your students global readers. Broaden their genres. When kids find a book they love, they often will stick to the same genre.  Because an author may write through different genres, this will expose your students to other genres- fiction, non-fiction, biographies, etc. This will have your students branch out, and try new books.

An author study may forge a love of books.  Students tend to fall in love in with an author’s characters and the plot.  When a student finds their favorite book, they will usually tell you it is because it is action packed, highly engaging, and/or they just love the characters.  Introducing students to an author will expose them to more than one novel or short story. Students may be more likely to pick up another book by an author they are interested in reading.

Resources for Author Studies

The Author Studies Toolkit

Author Studies Resources

Great Activities for Author Studies

I have some great digital activities for a variety of authors.  These are perfect if you are doing an authors study in your classroom. With these activities, your students will go on an author adventure, reading about the author’s life and the author’s writing. Also, your students will spend time analyzing lines from their writing. They will also take a trip with Google Maps, and learn about the author’s birthplace.

EDGAR ALLAN POE AUTHOR ADVENTURES

RAY BRADBURY AUTHOR ADVENTURES

ROALD DAHL AUTHOR ADVENTURES

Your students will love these! Happy reading!

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This year, teachers are learning that teaching writing virtually comes with many obstacles. To add to this, teachers have all had to make huge adjustments this year personally and professionally. Our personal daily habits, weekend and holiday plans, procedures and protocols, lesson plans and shopping have all changed dramatically. As a middle school English Language Arts teacher, I have seen, watched and heard about many of the new struggles teacher are having. One thing that keeps coming up as a hardship for colleagues is teaching writing virtually. Between limited instructional time, technology issues and everyone’s comfort levels with the new style of teaching and learning, it’s no wonder that teaching a subject as perplex as writing has become even more challenging. Check out some quick tips for how to help alleviate some stress when teaching your middle schoolers to write. 

Tips for Teaching Writing Virtually

1.First, give your students writing expectations. Be sure to tell your students exactly what these expectations are. They have never learned through a pandemic before, just as you have never taught through one. Students need to know they should not be working in a room full of distractions (including their phones!).  They also will need to become better advocates for themselves if they are having trouble with something. Try to give students a brief explanation for why these expectations are in place so they know why they are important.

2.Second, give yourself expectations. Make sure that your students are aware of what they are as well. This will help you stay accountable. It will also help your students see what you are doing for them and why they should complete their work for you. When you teach a new writing standard, model the new standard and give students the opportunity to practice the new standard. Always provide feedback for how the students are handling the new writing activity just as you would have in the past. You can use an extension like Mote. Here, the teacher can give voice feedback.

3.Next, and I can not express this enough-expect and be okay with changes. You are going to do things differently this year; there’s no doubt about it. As frustrating as it can be when administration is constantly changing things, try to bear in mind they have never run a school during a pandemic either. Everyone is just doing the best they can, as are you! And in case no one has told you today, you’re rockin’ it!

4. Model, model, model. Every writing task you give, you will want to model and setup how your students should approach it.  If you want your students to write a topic sentence, model the topic sentence for them.  With this, you can create your own document camera with your phone.  You can also use Google Slides or a website like Explain Everything Whiteboard.

5. Choose a video platform you are comfortable with. My favorite free video platforms are Loom and Screencast-o-matic. Both of these let you record your screen and have you face within the video simultaneously.  This is important because it makes the video more personable. Your students really need to see you at all times.

  In addition, you can either go live if you are comfortable with this or prerecord yourself.  Video is something everyone has to get used to in general, so again, choose the platform you are most comfortable with and you can use with ease.

Help! How I am going to plan and teach writing virtually?

I actually have two ideas for you! Knowing many teachers are struggling and overwhelmed with teaching writing virtually, I wanted to put something together to help and guide my fellow teachers. I also know this would be a learning opportunity for me. Hey listen…we are all in this together, right?

With this, I have put together a 3-part series LIVE masterclass, Stress Less Teaching – Teaching Writing Virtually. I am so excited to share this with you!

In this masterclass, I am going to share with you:

• Tips and tricks to teaching writing remotely
• How to break writing into mini-lessons that are manageable
• How I teach the introduction, body and conclusion paragraph, and how I will teach and model these paragraphs virtually
• Recorded model videos to share with your students
• Feedback ideas for writing
• An instant workbook and writing freebie download
• Professional Development certificate (if needed)
• Of course, there will a Q & A during the live masterclasses, and replays will always be available

If you would like to dig deeper into some tips for teaching writing this school year, be sure to check out my writing masterclass! It will open NEXT WEEK (Week of October 19th, 2020), and the spots will be limited.  You can get on the WISH LIST right HERE.  You will be the first to know when the masterclass opens to get your spot!

If you are looking for something right now and to get started with immediately, I created a whole course around teaching expository writing in the virtual classroom. This course comes with 10 videos and a workbook. You can check it out right HERE.

Happy teaching and writing.  If you have any questions, please always feel to reach out to me at englishohmy@gmail.com.

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One of the major components of a classroom is student engagement. As a middle school teacher, I have always tried to be cognizant of student engagement.  Whether I’m in the front of the class making a fool of myself, creating content about the most recent “dopest thing ever,” or giving assignments that require watching TikTok (<<insert face plant here>>), I want my students engaged. For the most part, middle school students want to be with their friends, but don’t want to be at school. Now, let’s add virtual learning to this equation and we have a Whole. New. Ball game. But I’m telling you – you’ve got this! Here are some quick ways to try and increase middle school student engagement while you are in the virtual setting.

Tips for Student Engagement

1. First, as always with teaching, give your students choices. That includes the use of the camera! How will you know they are there? You can still hear them! If you really still want to see your kiddos’ amazing faces, make some aspects of virtual learning camera required and some camera optional. Some kids don’t like staring at themselves and certainly don’t like other people staring at them. If you want your students participating they need to be comfortable. Not all students will always be with the camera on them. At least do me a favor and try this: tell students you’re doing an experiment and reduce your camera-on time requirements for a week. See what happens! 

2. Next, communication is key with student engagement. Just as we, as teachers, have a lot on our plates, so do these kids. CHECK IN ON THEM, and NOT just about school. Depending on how many students you have, set up a time for a Zoom, Google Meets or whatever platform you use to have a video conference with them at least twice a month. Make sure they know in advance this is a no pressure meeting and is for no other reason other than to check in on them. Ask them what they are enjoying about distance learning, what they hate about it, what they had for breakfast that morning, anything! Students will appreciate your personal interest in them and you will get to know them a bit better with every meeting. Remember students won’t learn from someone they don’t like.

3. Third, be flexible. Teaching through a pandemic is something administration, teachers and students have never done before. Don’t put a crazy amount of pressure on yourself or students to get through something if it’s just too much. Everything will get done in due time. We are all doing the very best we can, so give yourself (and everyone else) some grace!

4. Lastly, be creative. More than ever, you need to put on your creative hat, and choose activities that are going to engage your students in the online environment.  Teach and engage your students with creative games like digital escape rooms.  Your students can review and learn while playing a game.  They will be hooked! Here are some of my very popular Digital Escapes™-

Below are some question stems you may also want to try out with your middle school kiddos to help with student engagement. I have created them just for the topic of this post – promoting engagement! I would love to have you try them out and let me know what you think! 

Other Website Suggestions for Engagement in the Virtual Setting

1.25 Remote Teaching Tips To Engage Students In Distance Learning

2. 10 Ways to Engage and Instruct Students Remotely

Below are some question stems you may also want to try out with your middle school kiddos to help with student engagement. I have created them just for the topic of this post – promoting engagement! I would love to have you try them out and let me know what you think! 

Download these questions stems right HERE!

Happy teaching! 😊  Always, if you ever have any questions, please always feel to reach out!  

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Using engaging TED Talks in middle school is a perfect way to engage, inspire, and motivate your middle school students and young adults. First, TED talks are brief, to the point, lectures that are wonderful for encouraging an open dialogue with your middle school students. Next, there are a variety of topics that the TED talks cover. There is one thing these videos have in common. The subjects and themes are those that matter in the daily life of students, faculty, and families. Check out some of these amazing middle school TED Talks and motivating videos to inspire your middle school students.

Engaging TED Talks for Middle School Students

THE SIMPLE POWER OF HAND WASHING-

This first engaging middle school TED talk suggestion covers a topic we should all be on board with right now (and should’ve been on board with years ago). Dr. Myriam Sidibe, who is a crusader against childhood disease, discusses how important it really is for everyone to grab a bar of soap and wash their hands.

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES-

Next, Steven Claunch, who was born with multiple physical disabilities, gives a powerful talk. He discusses overcoming obstacles, as well as disabilities vs. abilities, in under 5 minutes.

WHY I, AS A BLACK MAN, ATTEND KKK RALLIES-

Daryl Davis, a professional musician born in Chicago, explains why he, as a Black man, has attended Ku Klux Klan rallies. Mr. Davis eventually became the first Black man to interview various KKK members. He wrote a book about what he learned. His driving question was always, “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” Today, he owns multiple robes and hoods of prior KKK members who have renounced from the group after befriending Mr. Davis.

MAKE YOUR BED, AND NEVER RING THE BELL -University of Texas at Austin 2014 Commencement Address-

Naval Adm. William H. McRaven’s 2014 Commencement Speech at the University of Texas at Austin gives quite the inspiring speech. He teaches us 10 important life lessons that he learned in the 6 months of Navy SEAL training, beginning with his first one – every morning, make your bed and ending with don’t ever, ring the bell.

Audrey Mason-Hyde discusses how people instinctively judge someone’s gender at their first appearance. She goes on to explain her trouble in bathrooms and how this progressed for her as she aged, as well as why we should try to denounce gender roles.

TOILETS, BOWTIES, GENDER AND ME-

Audrey Mason-Hyde discusses how people instinctively judge someone’s gender at their first appearance. She goes on to explain her trouble in bathrooms and how this progressed for her as she aged, as well as why we should try to denounce gender roles.

More Suggestions for Your Classroom

Here are some more links to help you explore engaging TED talks:

1. 10 TED Talks to Empower Middle School & High School Students
2. 35 Must Watch TED Talks for Students

How Would You Like a FREE TED Talk Digital Worksheet?

I created a TED Talk Digital Worksheet for you to assign to your students in Google Classroom or on a digital platform.  This worksheet asks your students to write about the main points of the TED Talk. It also asks your students to write a summary, discuss a theme, among other important items.  Grab it HERE.

Looking for more engaging resources like this? Check out my shop! 

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Online etiquette in the digital classroom is a topic of conversation as more teachers go back to a hybrid and blended classroom. For teachers, parents, and students, this academic year is going to look much different than what we have been accustomed to in the past. COVID may have schools putting some new permanent changes in place. This year will be an adjustment for everyone. Here are some online etiquette tips and tricks for students and parents who are in the digital learning environment. We are all still be working towards getting into our online groove; however, we can show that we are courteous and respectful of each other in a few simple ways.

Tips and Tricks for Proper Online Manners

1. Be on time. 

If you have a Zoom, Google Meets or Skype meeting, or even just a quick check-in phone call with a parent, teacher or student, be respectful that everyone has a lot going on.  Connect with them at the predetermined time. If you need to reschedule, don’t be afraid to do so.  Do not show up without communicating; this is rude. It shows poor online etiquette.

2. Be free from distractions.

In the digital classroom, we are connecting with someone through an audio or video call. Go to an area where you are free from distractions as much as possible. Yes, things happen and teachers, parents and students alike should (and mostly do) understand this. Dogs bark at trucks coming up the driveway. Younger children burst into rooms announcing that they need a snack right that second. While these instances are an acceptable part of virtual learning, watching your favorite television show while begging to discuss a way to get your grade up, is not.

3. Use the resources provided to you.

We are all learning to do a lot of new things through virtual learning. There is a lot to take in. If you are provided with directions and screenshots of how to complete a task, use them. That’s why the time was taken to provide you with these details.

Online Etiquette Websites

Check out these online resources for reviewing online etiquette:

Achieve Virtual

Centenary University

For more details about distance learning common courtesies, as well as step-by-step instructions (complete with screenshots) for completing a multitude of online tasks, be sure to check out my Become a Successful Digital Learner product:

ONLINE ETIQUETTE FOR ANY PLATFORM

Are you using Google Classroom™ and are looking for cheat sheets for Classroom, as well as online etiquette slides for your classroom? Check out my Using Google Classroom™ & Google Classroom Cheat Sheets for Parents & Students product.

Using Google Classroom™ & Google Classroom Cheat Sheets for Parents & Students

I hope this blog post is helpful in your classroom!

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Classroom digital tools are a hot topic of conversation among teachers these days. Many districts are debating whether their schools will go back full time or if there will be a hybrid schedule.  Nonetheless, teachers want to prepare for the “just in case” scenarios. Teachers want reliable, engaging digital tools.  Specifically, English Language Arts teachers are searching for digital websites and resources that help their students with annotating, reading and writing skills, grammar practice, among other English skills and techniques.

I wanted to share with you a few digital platforms and resources for the English Language Arts classroom.  I used and found these tools extremely helpful during distance learning.  Regardless of what your school district is doing in the fall, it is important to have a list of go-to digital tools in your back pocket. Distance learning is now a part of teachers’ vocabulary.  They have to be ready for the distance learning scenario at a moment’s notice.

Digital Resources for the Classroom

Here are three of my favorite digital tools for the English Language Arts Classroom-

Kami– Have you used Kami? It is an amazing digital tool for the English classroom. Kami is a Google Extension™ one can easily download to a Chromebook or Chrome extension bar.  What is so incredible about Kami, is the teacher uploads a PDF assignment, and it allows the students to highlight the text on the PDF. It also allows the students to listen to the text, annotate, write, and make notes on the document. Teachers can assign work through Kami, and the students can turn it in Google Classroom™.

Google Meets Grid View– During distance learning, many teachers were using Zoom; however, many districts were finding issues with the platform, as it was not safe.  Districts were and are using Google Meet because they are GSuite subscribers, and the students are 1:1 with Chromebooks. One of the nice features about Zoom is it provides a grid view of the students who enter a meeting.  For a while, Google Meets™ did not have the grid view features…but now they do.  You can now download this Google extension, and you get the same features of the grid view Zoom is offering. I love seeing all of my students’ faces in the meetings and creates the personal connection.

Quill– Quill is one of my favorite digital websites I used during distance learning.  I worried my students would digress in some of their grammar, punctuation, and mechanic skills, and this website came to the rescue. Quill provides free writing and grammar activities for elementary, middle, and high school students. What is incredible about Quill is the teacher can build an assignment for their students or s/he can assign a diagnostic test to see where the students are lacking in skills. Quill makes it so easy because if the teacher is using Google Classroom™, s/he can just connect his/her classes right to Quill. You will love it!

The ELA Success Summit

Are you looking for MORE engaging, exciting digital tools, resources, and insights for the English Language Arts Classroom?

My dear friend, Kristy, from 2Peasandadog and I, put our creative minds together and created the ELA Success Summit. Together, we had discussions about what we thought English teachers will need for the upcoming school year. Since online learning may continue, we put together an online conference focusing on digital tools, resources, websites, and insights to help teachers in the classroom.

In this online summit, registrants will receive 20+ videos ranging from creating in Google Slides™, writing and reading in the digital classroom, using Google Forms™ for assessment purposes, classroom discourse, and so much more! Registrants will also receive the replay of the videos for two months, and s/he can watch them at his/her leisure.

This summit will give you a tremendous amount of information, incredible planning ideas for the new school year, as well as relieve some of your stress and apprehension you may have with remote learning.

If you are interested in learning more about the ELA Success Summit, you can check it out HERE!

If you ever have any questions or want to reach out, please feel free to email me at englishohmy@gmail.com!

Talk soon,

Kim

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Displaying students’ work creatively has become a challenge with distance learning. On a normal day, our students look forward seeing their work displayed on the bulletin boards in the classroom. However, with distance learning, students cannot see their work displayed. What would you do if I told you there is a solution to this?!??! Yes, that is right. You can implement digital bulletin boards.

Currently, activities are assigned in Google Classroom, completed by our students, and poof, the students return the work into the vast Internet cloud, to never see it again. For some students, seeing their work presented in the classroom encourages and reinforces their effort, integrity and hard work. How can teachers display students’ work digitally? Digital Bulletin Boards.

Virtual Ways to Use Digital Bulletin Boards

Displaying Students’ Work- Are you working on a writing assignment, poetry or a creative assessment? When your students turn in their work and you assess it, take screen shots of their work. Or, you can actually save a Google Doc or Slide as a JPEG, by clicking on FILE–>DOWNLOAD–>SAVE AS JPEG. You then can upload all of your JPEGS into a blank bulletin board JPEG in Google Slides. What is really exciting is you can link your bulletin board Google Slides to the large documents by creating a hyperlink in the Google Slides.

Create Weekly Agendas- Our students find it difficult to navigate the Google Calendar. There is sometimes 10-15 assignments assigned in the Google calendar, in addition to the Google Meets. You can display your week of activities on one digital bulletin board. Then, you can attach it right in the Google Classroom feed.

Create a “To-Do” or a Reminder Board-Send out your bulletin board with sticky note reminders. This is a creative way to remind your students what they need to do or projects that are due.

Add Your Own Flair to Your Virtual Bulletin Boards

Teachers miss their bulletin boards in their classroom. There is an excitement when I decorate my bulletin board. Guess what?!?! You can add your own flair, colors and creative niche to your digital bulletin boards!

Add Borders– Just like your regular classroom, you can add your own flair to your bulletin boards with vibrant, fun borders. Look at these-

Insert Sticky Notes PNGs-Want to remind your students of an assignment or a project? Add a Sticky Note PNG.

Add Frames Around Your Students’ Work-If you are looking to display your students’ work, add some of the creative frames around their work!

Create Your Bitmoji!–Bitmojis are all the craze right now in the digital classrooms. Adding an avatar to your bulletin board makes them even more personal. If you want to add a Bitmoji, you will have to create an account on the Bitmoji site. You then can download the extension for Google Chrome and easily insert your avatar into anything!

Free Sites to Help You Create Your Digital Bulletin Boards

These websites will help you in your creation of your bulletin boards-

Pixabay

Pexels

Unsplash

Don’t Have Time to Create Your Own Virtual Bulletin Board?

I know. Time is of the essence right now, and it is hard to find time in between distance learning and teaching to create things from scratch!

Don’t worry, I have you covered. I created Digital Bulletin Board templates to get you started. This product comes with borders, frames, sticky notes, digital stickers, push pins, and of course ideas! This is all ready to go in Google Slides.

There are so many ways to use these bulletin boards, and I know your students will appreciate seeing their work digitally! Get creating!

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As many teachers are transitioning to online learning, they are looking for tips for creating engaging digital resources to excite their students in the distance learning environment. Navigating these uncharted waters of distance learning is difficult. At times, it is hard not to default to the same educational websites or activities. Teachers want to move their students forward in their knowledge and provide the best activities and materials for them. Therefore, finding tips and suggestions to creating engaging digital resources is key.

I wanted to share a few tips to creating engaging digital resources I use when creating my own resources for my students.

1. Add Vibrant Colors-Anything is better with color. Color evokes emotions, and adding some vibrant colors to borders or backgrounds in Google Slides™ makes the resource or lesson more appealing. Colors are stimulating. Here is a picture from my Anne Frank Digital Expedition. This image gives the impression of a calm and soothing journey. Imagine this with a white background?!?! Yuck!

2. Add Engaging Clipart & GIFS– In order to create engaging digital resources, adding some relevant clipart or some fun GIFS to a Google Slide or Google Doc can definitely brighten the resource. Did you know GIFs work in Google Slides? I use firework GIFs in my digital escape room when the students “escape” the activity. Once again, clipart gives a nice aesthetic to the activity. GIPHY is a perfect place to find fun, free GIFS. If you are looking for quality clipart, check out places like Unsplash or Pexels.

3. Use Moveable Pieces–Rather than just having your students type inside the boxes, make some pieces the students can move around the resource. For example, maybe the students have to match the definition to a vocabulary word by dragging the definition box over to the word. Or, maybe you are asking the students to put events in chronological order. This makes the activity more interactive.

4. Make the Digital Resource a Game– Students love activities that are high- energy and are a competition. Teachers can easily take a resource and make it into a game, competition, or even a digital escape room. I started creating digital escape rooms a few years ago, and they are a HUGE hit in the classroom. If you want to check some out, you can click HERE. You can easily turn an activity and have your students find the code in the activity, create a matching game and other fun ideas!

5. Make It Pretty, but Keep It Simple- One thing you should be careful of when creating digital resources is not to overload the activity with too many colors, clipart, and other distractors. Keep the activity organized and clean. Put yourself in the students position when reading your slide-Is it easy to navigate? Will the student understand their steps and what they have to complete?

Are You Looking to Create Digital Resources, but Need Some Help?

Some teachers struggle with the creative component when creating resources for online learning, or they are really looking for more instruction to make their resources more engaging.

Whether you are a teacher or a seller in the tech infused marketplace, my dear friend, Danielle Knight from Study All Knight, and I have put together a course called Digital Sellers Academy. This course is designed to help teachers and sellers create dynamic digital resources for online learning. The time is now to turn your resources over to digital activities.

Danielle will teach you how to make beautiful, engaging resources with moveable pieces in the Google Apps™ , and I will take you on the journey in creating a digital, multi-layered escape room. You will learn all about Google Slides™ , Google Forms, Google Drawings, among many other features, tricks and tips. This course is loaded with 20 videos, templates, and resources to help in your digital journey.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at englishohmy@gmail.com!

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Teachers are on the hunt for engaging ELA websites for their middle school English Language Arts students. Because of distance learning, teachers are scouring the Internet. They are trying to find a variety of lessons and activities to make the distance learning experience interesting and appealing. Teachers want to give their students a variety of online resources that assesses and reviews a variety of ELA skills-grammar, spelling, punctuation, reading skills and writing-while engaging and piquing their interest.

Below, I compiled a list of engaging ELA websites I have been using in my own distance learning experience.

ELA Websites & Resources for Middle School ELA Students

Quill.org-This is one of my favorite engaging digital websites I am using with my students in their distance learning experience. Quill gives students the opportunity to practice their grammar, mechanics and editing skills. If you are using the Google Classroom platform, you can easily upload your students, and assign the lessons using the Classroom.

Actively Learn-Out of all the reading websites like NewsELA, CommonLit, and such, this is one I really like because the articles are a bit more relevant and engaging for middle school students.

IXL-IXL offers a variety of skills for any subject; however, you can have your students take a diagnostic test, and focus on specific ELA skills with them. IXL is offering their premium membership free for 30 days.

EdPuzzle-EdPuzzle is an engaging video website. Teachers can assign videos with questions, and EdPuzzle pushes out the videos into Google Classroom.

Writable-This websites allows teachers to build purposeful, proficient writers while saving time on grading and prep. Teachers can choose from 600+ customizable assignments and prompts or create your own, then assign to start growing great writers. This is Google Classroom friendly! This website is currently free to teachers.

Teaching Tolerance -Teaching Tolerance has great lessons on inclusion, diversity, and tolerance.

I hope these websites are helpful in your exploration in digital and remote teaching.

Digital ELA Resources for Distance Learning

Here are some of my digital English Language Arts resources I have created for my own classroom and digital learning:

I hope these websites are helpful to you, and if you have any questions about any of the websites or my resources, please always feel free to email me at englishohmy@gmail.com.

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What is a Digital Escape Ⓡ?

The Benefits of a Digital Escape

Creating Engagement & Collaboration in the Classroom

One aspect all teachers want to see in their classroom is engagement and collaboration.  They want to see their students are completely interested in the activity, as well as working collaboratively and responsibly with their peers.  Digital Escape Rooms do just this! It take a variety of thinkers to complete a digital escape room.  Look at how engaged these students are in my Fortnite Digital Escape!

 

In addition to collaboration and engagement, there are also quite a few other benefits to trying a Digital Escape in your classroom! Check these out:

 

A.  Your students will tap into their higher-level critical thinking and problem solving skills.

B.  Digital Escape Rooms are perfect for your Special Education and ELL students for the practice of communication skills and techniques.

C.  Rather than the teacher facilitating the lesson, the students take ownership of their learning.

D.  The escape rooms teach your students to work under pressure.

E.  Digital Escape Rooms will present as a game, but realistically, your students are practicing, learning and applying the subject-specific content, while using important life skills to complete the activity.

 

F. Simply, they are so much fun!My Digital Escapes:

Where Can I Find These Escapes?

Here are a few amazing Teacher-Authors who sell Digital Escapes. Make to check out their creative, innovative escapes!

Study All Knight-Digital Escape Rooms

 

Tanya Yero Teaching

 

Sweet Integrations

 

Troubleshooting the Escape Rooms

Of course, like all technology, sometimes there are some roadblocks.  Here are some of the roadblocks teachers run into when using escape room in the classroom:

 

1. Google Sites is blocked:  Many school districts block outside Google Sites, and many of these digital escape rooms are made with this app. Therefore, I would always suggest checking your school’s restrictions with Google Apps and Sites. If your school district blocks Google Sites, most likely, your kids will get a 404 error.  

2.  I cannot access Jigsaw Planet and/or ProProfs: If the jigsaw puzzle and/or sliding puzzle is showing a sad face, this means your district’s firewall is blocking these site.  You can ask your IT department to release these websites for these activities.

3.  I do not know where the answers are to the escape room: When you purchase an escape room from English, Oh My, the escape room comes with a PDF that walks the teacher through every activity, code and puzzle.  The PDF also has an answer sheet for quick reference for the teacher. However, this is an activity the teacher needs to be prepared for as well.  I can guarantee you your students will have questions.  Digital Escapes are made to be challenging, and students need to follow directions in order to be successful (we know that many students tend to forget to read the directions!). The teacher should be familiar and should try out the escape on their own first, before implementing it in class.

4.  Can I have a copy of the Google answer form?:

 

 

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