BloomBoard: A Great Resource for Teachers

After teaching third grade for the past 14 years, I made the switch to fifth grade this school year.  I am truly enjoying getting to know a new curriculum and feeling rejuvenated.  With that being said, I have also spent a TON of time searching for resources to support my curriculum and build background knowledge. As with most things, when you have a question or need ideas, what do you do?  I bet you Google it, which also means, you are probably on a mini-scavenger hunt to scan and search for quality resources.  I recently found out about a great resource for educators that is a huge timesaver!  BloomBoard is a place for educators to learn, share, and discuss educational topics, resources, and ideas!

Instead of digging around the web for quality sites, games, articles, videos, etc., BloomBoard has collections created by educators that focus on topics relevant to education.  There are content-specific categories with awesome resources, but what drew me in even more, was the focus on broader topics like: Educating the Whole Child, Maintaining Professional Happiness, Building Strong School Culture, etc. What’s even cooler is that you can follow certain topics of interests, save and share resources, and even earn micro-credentials, which some school districts are using for PD credits.

I created a collection on Formative Assessment called “Formative Assessment Can Be Fun” highlighting two of my favorite tools, Plickers and Kahoot, as well as several articles and videos showcasing ways students can have fun while being assessed.  Here are some of the highlighted tools.

• If your students don’t have access to devices, Plickers is the tool for you.  Also, they just launched an amazing new feature with Scoresheet, which makes data collection far more flexible and user-friendly!
• Kahoot has been a student favorite for several years. My students are now creating their own Kahoots to quiz fellow classmates, as well as lead book club discussions.
• C. Ross Flatt and his sixth-grade students were featured in an Edutopia video highlighting game-based assessment.  He not only showcases the fun way assessment can be administered, but he also has links to his game for teachers to print off from the main blog post.
• David Wees, a formative assessment specialist, shared a presentation with 56 ways to assess, complete with visual examples.

Overall, my collection has many great resources featured that will help you in finding the formative assessment tool(s) that are right for you!  Like many of the BloomBoard collections, you can find resources to help you everyday needs in education, connect with like-minded educators, and help improve your practices.

Check out the BloomBoard blog. You can check it out to get links to the blogs that that have already been featured, as well as check out the schedule of featured bloggers for next week that will be posted on Monday. You can also follow along daily on Facebook and Twitter.

Tomorrow's featured blogger is Jennifer Gonzalez. Jennifer Gonzalez is a National Board Certified Teacher, a former middle-school language arts teacher and college-level teacher of teachers, and the creator of Cult of Pedagogy, a website devoted to helping teachers do their work better.