TES Teach with Blendspace – Teaching Resources, Lesson Plans, and Ideas

TES Teach with Blendspace allows teachers to create lesson plans easily. To begin, teachers must register with the app. Next, they can tap the “House” icon on the left to view previously created lessons by other teachers or the “Planbook” icon to create their own lesson. When viewing the previously created lessons, teachers can search by subject area (e.g., math, science, social studies, language arts, and more) and browse the results. If a lesson interests them, teachers can tap and the app will load the lesson. When viewing the lesson, teachers can browse it by a slide view, tap the “Play” button to view the lesson as intended by the teacher, or tap the “Upload” button to share the lesson via email. If teachers view the lesson, they can tap the “Dialogue” button on the right of the screen to add comments. If teachers tap the “Planbook” icon on the main screen to create their own lesson, the app will load their dashboard where they can see lessons they previously created. When ready to create their own lesson, they can tap the “+ New Lesson” on the top right of the screen. Teachers are then brought to a new page where they can first add a title to their lesson and then input the lesson’s topic (e.g., Romantic poetry, Genghis Khan, Mars, etc.) in the search field on the top right of the screen. TES Teach will then search for a variety of resources, and the search results appear down the right side of the screen as YouTube Videos, Google Search Results, Google Images, and Flcker images. When teachers identify a resource they wish to use, they can simply drag it from the right side column into one of the blank tiles on the left. As they add more resources, teachers can arrange their ordering by clicking and dragging the tiles to reorganize them. In addition, teachers can upload documents and files from their Google Drive or Dropbox accounts into the lesson. If teachers wish to add text, an image, web link or a quiz to their lesson, they can do so by tapping the first tile and choosing or adding the content. When finished, teachers can click the “Upload” button to share their lesson with students via a link sent through email. Once sent, students can click the link to view the lesson. If students are registered with TES Teach, they will be able to view, comment, and complete the quizzes. If they are not registered, students will only be able to view the lesson.

Classroom Applications

1. Teachers can use this app to create blended learning lessons. To do so, they can add a variety of resources for students to engage before concluding the lesson with an assessment.
2. Teachers can use this app to create resource collections or text sets, which are a group of videos, images, and/or texts that relate to a central topic. That way, when the topic is studied, teachers can share the resource collection or text set with students and allow them to explore it individually. In addition, teachers can have students use the resource collection or text set when completing a research assignment.
3. When assigning students a project to complete, teachers can support them by creating and sharing a lesson that only includes examples of completed projects for students to model.