Take Control of Independent Work Time with Classroomscreen

Teachers know it is challenging to keep your students focused during independent or group activity times.

Classroomscreen has changed the way our day runs. and I could not be more grateful (or excited) about it!

 

I have used Classroomscreen for many ears, but the latest updates have made it impossible to teach without. 

One of my favorite features is that you can embed any Youtube video, and it will play Ad free! That is a game changer - who has time to run across the room to skip ads all day? 

Here is what I setup my screen to look like most days:

I choose our ambient music for the day, and put up their work signals: voice volume and the traffic light. The clock can be analog or digital, which is perfect for our time lessons.

I love that it includes a calendar, which can be stretched to show the whole month, and the rest of the year.

I use the month feature during our morning meeting and then switch it to the day version for the rest of the day.

The widget bar is customizable too, which is a huge timesaver! You can drag your favorite widgets to the top row for easy access.

The latest update is a visual timer to let your students see how much time they have remaining. This one came out after we finished school, and I cannot wait to try it out in the Fall. It can be set up to one hour, which is so helpful!

The random name and group maker are two other useful options. The group maker has saved me so much time during Math and Knowledge lessons. You slide it over to decide how many students in a group, and it picks them for you! 

I use the random name to choose helpers, and I also have our Kagan table numbers too, so we know who is doing which transitional job. The group maker shows them who will sit on the benches in the morning and who will sit on them in the afternoon.

You can save three name lists with the free version.

Besides having a daily screen, I made one for math too. This screen helps my students to practice adding 3 numbers. I turned on the whiteboard draw feature too, which allowed them to solve the problems on our Clear Touch Panel.

This is how I would setup my screen most mornings. 

When it is time for seat work, and I need to control the volume level in the room, we switch the light to yellow. If I am testing my students, it goes on red. Green means they can chat, yellow is whisper voices and red means no voices and stay in your seats.

The poll option is great for arrival time. It always gave my students something to discuss each morning! 

You can choose from 3 types of polls:

A true or false question which is perfect for a quick question.

A multiple choice option, which I used a lot after our Knowledge lessons to check in on some of the deeper concepts I wanted to see if they were able to grasp.

Then there is the smiley option, which you can change from 2-5 smiley faces, depending on what you are checking. I use this to see how they are feeling on Monday, or after vacations and drills.

Next year I am switching to the pro version because it allows you to save screens, workspaces and up to 100 name lists!

I love the color changing option that you can use on each of the widgets. I use the invisible background with black letters most days. I love how it cuts down on the visual clutter, even though there is a lot of information on the screen.

Here is a quick video showing how I setup my screen each day. 

My students loved it so much they would ask me to put it on the minute I would return from a meeting. I highly recommend incorporating it into your student's routine - it is worth it!