What is Blended Learning? Blended learning is a hybrid of face-to-face learning between students and teacher (a more traditional approach), with digital or online learning activities

What is an Education Platform? A platform aims to deliver content, instruction, assessment, and analytics for teachers and students Collaborize Classroom is one of many companies who are trying to accomplish this goal The reason why I am going to tell you about CC in this webinar? You know TechTools is all about FREE stuff!

What is Collaborize Classroom? Collaborize Classroom is an online community where teachers and students can collaborate and discuss various topics in a safe online environment

How Does CC Work? Sign up Build a class Invite students to join Browse discussion topics Make your own topics Monitor discussions (and contribute) Start discussions in class & continue them online Start discussions online & continue them in class

CC Home Page

Get Started Sign up for a FREE account at

Discussion Page

Invite New Members to Your Group Simply type in the addresses of people you want to add to your group You could also import a list of people on an Excel spreadsheet to add many people at one time

Invite New Members to Your Group

Manage Your Class

Monitor Activity in Your Group

Find Topics by Subject or Grade Level

Math Topics Page

Professional Development Topics

Find Topics by User Tags

What If I Want to Write My Own Question or Topic? You aren’t limited to the questions or topics contained in the website…you and your students can write your OWN if you want to!

Start a Discussion

Discussion Settings Title your discussion (or ask a question) Write a description of your topic or question Choose the format of the answers you want –Yes or No –Multiple Choice –Vote or Suggest –Forum

Discussion Settings Select the categories you want your question to appear in Set an “End Date” if you want Attach a file (PDF, Picture, Document, etc.) Hit “Publish”

My Discussion I Started

Decide the “Type” of Question or Discussion

Technology Integration & Fluency The CCSS require students as young as 4 th Grade “to use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as interact and collaborate with others” Collaborize Classroom provides a safe environment for students to communicate, collaborate, and develop reading, writing, and language fluency skills

Media Literacy The CCSS requires that students be able to think critically about and effectively use media Collaborize Classroom makes it easy to introduce a wide range of media for students to work with. They also are able to share their work in a safe environment

Speaking & Listening Skills The CCSS want students to “engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions” CC allows teachers and students to engage in those types of conversations in a safe environment

Opinion/Argument Writing English/Language Arts, History, and Science all require opinion pieces in upper elementary and argument writing from 6-12 Grade The CC Yes/No question structure is ideal for teaching students to form an opinion and support it

Writing Across Disciplines The CCSS requires that all subjects implement an integrated model of literacy – developing reading AND writing fluency Collaborative Classroom provides a space for students to read documents and articulate their thoughts in writing, making it easier to address this aspect of the CCSS

The Student-Centered Classroom Teachers can use CC to flip their classroom, or provide student-centered activities so that they can problem-solve, research, and think critically These skills are at the heart of the College & Career Readiness Standards, which serve as the backbone of the CCSS

Grouping for Success Collaborize Classroom supports the grouping of students by ability, interest, learning style, language proficiency, or at random to best support student learning

Real World Problems/Skills CC makes it possible to engage students in real world problem solving, which is an essential element of the math standards

The Price Have I mentioned that all of this is FREE? I spoke with the CC people at ISTE, and they said that plans are in the works for a “Premium” site that will charge a monthly subscription fee The “Basic” version of CC will be free for the foreseeable future

More Free Resources From CC