This year, Portaportal has become the most useful online tool I have. My students, and many of the kids in the mainstream classes I assist in, all know that they can refer to my Portaportal to find resources to support the unit they are working on.
My 6th graders practiced geography at home and in their Guided Study periods by finding links on Portaportal. As a result, they learned their states, Canadian Provinces, European countries, etc. with relative ease, all the while thinking they were getting away with something (playing games instead of studying).
Every time my students start a new unit, I find websites to support the information they are learning in class. In my American History tab, I have a Revolutionary War timeline, links to SchoolHouse Rock's songs (The Shot Heard Round the World!) and a game. In 8th grade Science, I have a student who has a great deal of difficulty understanding the material presented. For this student, I have saved links to videos and games on the most recent unit which she plays at home or during class when we are doing more difficult tasks. Yesterday she took an online quiz about solids, liquids and gases and got 10/10!
The other benefit of Portaportal is that now I have one location to go to for all of the resources I find during the school year.
Also on Portaportal, I post links to flashcard sets I create on Quizlet. This site is incredibly helpful as well, especially now that it has an audio function (some of my students have difficulty reading or concentrating, and the audio helps). When we start a unit, I put about 10 cards in a set and have them practice them at home. As the unit progresses, I add 5-10 more until I have a maximum of 25 before the test. Here's a set of 7th grade Science cards I created in 10 minutes while assisting kids in class. The kids practice them in this order: both sides, one side (term first), then they play "Scatter", and then, they take practice tests. A recent article in the New York Times discusses how test taking is more effective than studying, and I agree with that whole-heartedly! My students take practice tests, with matching, multiple choice and true/false questions until they are confident, and then they often decide to take the same test everyone in the class is taking! One student took a computer test on 26 facts, the same information as was on the test in the mainstream classroom, in 3 minutes flat, without any assistance from me. He got 100%. I was gobsmacked!
The latest site I've discovered is Quicklyst. This site helps students create a very simple, searchable outline. It has a dictionary/encyclopedia function, so students can get definitions and explanations for unknown words as they create the outline. I'll give it a try this week and see how well it works IRL.
My laptop travels with me to all my classes now -- it's practically another limb! I still use many of the tools that I learned in our class, and continue to find new ones on a weekly basis. Thank you, Connie and Steve!
