hy is it that teachers always try to recreate the wheel?

We are convinced that no one does our topic like we do, so we make everything from scratch.  The idea of “I have to do it my way” can be super limiting!

So let go of the reins a bit, and allow me show you a few “ready to use” classroom resources that might save you some time. 

Some of the tools I describe below may be familiar. You may even have used them already in your class.  But I bet you didn’t realize the wealth of information and free resources they offer that are all ready to go. No prep time necessary!

I highly encourage you to spend no more than 30 minutes to quickly investigate the recommendations below. I think you will be pleasantly surprised!

Many of you know Flipgrid to be a free website for short student videos and “digital discussions”.  It allows the teacher to create a prompt of some type (photo, text, video etc), and then the students respond to that prompt by recording their own mini videos.  All of the videos are posted right there on the discussion page, so each student can view the videos of the other. Therefore, when the students respond to each other’s videos, it creates a digital “discussion”. 

Many of you have used Flipgrid, I’m sure. But did you ever investigate the “Discovery” tab at the top of your account page? 

When you click on “Discovery”, it shows you the vast amount of Discussions and Topics that other people have created and made public. 

The majority of them are created by very respectable organizations, such as large museums, non-profit organizations, educational institutions etc. They are professionally designed activities on all kinds of fascinating topics.  Take a look at these topics from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Minecraft for Education or Made By Dyslexia:

If you see a topic you like, click on it for more information. If it suits you and your students, you just click on “Add Topic” to put it in your own library. Now you can easily share it with your students …. and you’re *Done*!

Or, just use the Search bar (also at the top of the “Discovery” tab) to search for specific topics, like “high school Spanish”, “middle school history” etc. There are discussion topics made by other teachers and educators of all different subjects and levels.  (If you would like ideas on how to use Flipgrid as an assessment tool click here)

All you need to do is find the topic that suits your class and then “plug and play”. Share it with your class and you have an entire lesson ready to go.

Another free and robust website is Khan Academy. Can you believe this started out as a friendly uncle helping his nephews with their math homework by recording short videos? Well, now it is a massive, multimillion dollar organization that teaches many different subjects through video lessons and interactive activities. 

Khan Academy offers entire courses in math, science, arts and humanities, language, life skills etc. You can find almost anything there! It has tons of resources and could be really helpful to your class too. 

Take a look at all the courses they offer:

If you don’t want your students to do an entire course, you could just assign them a few lessons.  It is super easy to monitor their progress also.  You could use this with the entire class, or simply as a differentiation exercise.  You know, some students need extra challenges and others need extra help to bring them up to speed. 

This is another example of a free resource that is ready to use without you needing to custom create anything. Just share the link with your students and you’re *Done*.

I’ve been using Quizlet for about 15 years. I love it! It is a website for creating “study decks” (what I like to call “flashcards”).  But it’s more like flashcards on steroids.  As you would imagine, a flashcard has a term on one side and a definition on another. As this is the digital version of flashcards, you can add photos and audio to the cards as well. 

The neat part of these flashcards is that Quizlet takes those terms and definitions and presents them to you in about 6 different formats to help you study them more efficiently. You can see them as flashcards, or as fill in the blanks, audio prompts or as a “avoid the asteroid” game. It is super fun, engaging and an effective study technique. 

BUT, you don’t need to create the study set yourself. Once you are in your account page, just use the search function to find the topic you’re looking for. For example: “spanish irregular verbs” or “anatomy” or “algebra problems” etc. There are thousands of ready made decks you can copy and put into your own library for personal use. 

Once you have a copy of the study set in your library, check it over and add or change whatever term you feel you need to. Then share it with your students and you’re *Done*.

These are just three examples of ready to use materials out of millions available online.  But it doesn’t stop there! 

Why not check out Epic Books or NewsELA for super interesting and age-appropriate books and news articles for kids. Or take a look at SeeSaw, an app/website for portfolios that also offers a massive amount of classroom activities that are all ready for use.  There is always Ted ED for inspiring talks on thousands of different topics as well. 

My personal favorite is Google Arts & Culture.  It offers high resolution digital images of all the famous works of art around the world.  If that wasn’t interesting enough, they have curators who arrange the works into “exhibitions” and interactive experiences of all types. Learn about cultural events, holidays, famous artists, genres or the museums themselves.  You can share any of these with your students super easily.  The only prep work necessary is choosing which one of all the fascinating items to share!

The point is, you don’t need to create materials for your class from scratch. Any website that offers you tools for class activities also has a “Search” bar. Just type in your topic and see what classroom resources they have to offer!