Got the summer school blues? Use these online tools to brighten your day!

Summer high school teachers, we've all been there.  You have one class with the same students and the same subject for the entire day.  The day is dragging. Lecturing for hours is out of the question.  Having the students do book work for hours upon hours can be pretty boring and really make your day drag. But now there's The Internet and GAFE!  Make the day zip by while having your students learn the subject matter using online apps.

You say you don't have access to computers or a computer lab, well, there are ways around that, especially at the high school level.  Knowing that most of your students have cell phones will set you free of a day of classroom monotony. And, even if not all of the students have phones, they can still partner up with those that do.
Here's some ideas:

Socrative is a great way to spend a summer class session. Split the class up into teams using just a few cell phones and boom! You've got fun learning that can last as long as you need it or want it to.

Quizizz is another great way to keep the troops entertained while there is actual learning going on. Again, split the class into groups based on cell phone availability and review the days topic with your students. You can creamy a quiz beforehand or quickly use one that has already been created.

Pear Deck is a good activity to use when other reviewing content or going through it for the first time. Split the students into pairs and pose different questions to each group and have the students take notes on their classmates answers. Assign different parts of a text to different pairs and have them present the main points through Pear Deck on the big screen for all to see.

Google Slides Q & A could also work with pairs.  Have the students pair up and ask them to come up with questions or comments about the Google Slide presentation that you've given.  Students enjoy seeing their questions and comments on the big screen in front of the class.

Playing Games with Quizizz

Quizizz (http://quizizz.com/) is now integrated with Google Classroom!  This is great news as it will make it easier to integrate it into my classroom.  If you don't know, Quizizz is a great platform for reviewing material and assessing your students.  

Quizizz most certainly brings out the competitive spirit in your students as they compete against each other as to who will have the title of Review Champion!  Students enjoy the games as they compete to answer questions that were either created by you or by someone else.  You see, before creating a quiz, you have the option of selecting from numerous other quizzes that were created by others.  Simply type in the topic in the search bar and you are presented countless quizzes.  The cool thing about doing the search is that you are presented with a preview of each quiz on the right-hand side,  so you can look at the contents of a quiz before selecting it.  Searching for World War I provided me with over 4,700 quizzes.  As I said before, if you don't like the quizzes you are shown or if you want something a bit more specific to your subject matter, you can create your own.

Another great aspect of Quizizz is that you are provided with post game reports.  The reports provide the teacher with invaluable data such as the percentage of accuracy for your class, the percentage of correct answers for each question, as well as individual student answers for each question.  And, if you choose, you can either print the report or download as a spreadsheet.

If you're looking for a fun and easy way to review material with your students (and who isn't), you owe it to yourself to try Quizizz.