🗑 10 quick videos + activities for class

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The Figma Team is partnering up with the awesome teachers in our community to share even more ideas on how to bring creativity, joy, and meaningful learning experiences to your classroom with FigJam.

Join our teacher community on Insta to get bite-sized PD and stay connected on all things FigJam & Figma for Edu!

We’re kicking off the teacher love fest by giving away one teacher survival kit to get you through the last month of school. All you need to do is follow us on Instagram and comment on the giveaway post!

💻 TECH TIP 💻

🧹 10 easy ways to clean up your Google Classroom

As educators, when the end of the school year hits, we want to get everything wrapped up.

Knock out that end-of-year teacher checklist.

Get the room tidied up. Get out the door and get summer started!

It’s a good time to think about tidying up your Google Classroom, too.

In our post — 10 easy ways to clean up your Google Classroom — we share a bunch of quick steps you can take right now, like …

• Grade and return all work

• Archive old classes

• Do NOT delete the Classroom folder

• Make a folder for exemplary work

… and much more! Check it out and get your Google Classroom nice and tidy.

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

📺 10 top Teachflix videos and ready-to-use activities

My kids are down to their last two days of school.

Those last days of school are weird, aren’t they? In high school and middle school, final exam schedules can make the flow of the day really wonky.

And in elementary school? The excitement and energy is off the charts.

Sometimes, you just need a quick easy activity to fill those moments in those odd days.

Teachflix (teachflix.org) is fantastic for that.

It’s our free collection of teacher-approved videos WITH pre-made activities you can use with students right away.

Plus, we’ve partnered with ClickView to provide even more free standards-aligned instructional videos — PLUS free lesson plans — to you in one place.

10 top videos PLUS read-made activities

Today, we’ve picked out 10 of our favorite videos, and … like peanut butter and jelly … like wine and cheese … like Bert and Ernie … we’ve paired it with an activity that fits perfectly with the video.

Below are four examples … four of our favorites … with links to the videos AND the activities.

Video 1: You woke up inside of a video game

📺 VIDEO: You slowly wake up one morning and notice something strange. You are living inside of a video game. You reach for your face, thinking maybe it’s a VR headset. But it’s not. You are stuck. You look around to see if there’s an explanation. A note perhaps? But it turns out you must discover everything on your own.

🖐 ACTIVITY: Pixar story structure template. Lots of Pixar movies (and other movies, too) follow this structure. Anyone can use this story structure to effortlessly create a narrative. Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

Video 2: Can you solve the bridge riddle?

📺 VIDEO: Taking that internship in a remote mountain lab might not have been the best idea. Pulling that lever with the skull symbol just to see what it did probably wasn’t so smart either. But now is not the time for regrets because you need to get away from these mutant zombies...fast. Can you use math to get you and your friends over the bridge before the zombies arrive?

🖐 ACTIVITY: Bridge riddle simulation game. Use math, strategy, and computational thinking to figure out the answer to this riddle. Test your answer playing this simulation game.

Video 3: The ethics of artificial intelligence

📺 VIDEO: AI is becoming more integrated into our lives at a lightning pace, but have you ever thought about its ethical dimensions? This video explores some of the ethical considerations surrounding AI, including privacy, bias, transparency, and accountability. Gain a deeper understanding of the potential ethical challenges and implications as we navigate the impact of AI in our society. (Video + resources available for free through ClickView.)

🖐 ACTIVITY: Ethical dilemmas. "Ethical Dilemmas" guides students to explore real-world ethical concerns arising from AI technologies through group discussions of provided scenarios, encouraging them to identify dilemmas from multiple perspectives and consider broader implications.

Video 4: Can you spot fake news?

📺 VIDEO: This video tests what students have learned by checking their ability to distinguish real news from fake. It includes such “news” as clickbait from ELLE magazine, Russia releasing lions into the streets, and the use of misleading images by news outlets. An essential resource to test what middle school students have gained from the rest of the series. (Video + resources available for free through ClickView.)

🖐 ACTIVITY: Can you spot fake news? This worksheet, part of "The Digital Literacy Series: Fake News," from ClickView, prompts students to watch a video and answer questions designed to help them identify clues and understand the nature of fake news. It encourages critical thinking about online information and aims to develop skills in discerning truth from falsehood.

Get more videos + activities

There’s more! In our new post, 10 top Teachflix videos and ready-to-use activities, you’ll find 10 videos paired with activities. Check out the post for all of the possibilities!

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!