January 10, 2017

Recap: a free student video response app

“Recap provides teachers with new, creative ways to gather evidence of student thinking using video. It helps create new learning connections between students, parents and teachers, and foster more transformative dialogue by everyone. Great for any age!”

Recap is designed to have students provide their feedback in a fun and easy manner by recording their own responses and/or capture their thinking on video.

It can be used to provide: 

• Formative Assessment
• Reflection
• Class Management 
• Parent Communication

Recap is multi-device which means it can be used on an iPad, Laptop, Chromebook and more.

To learn more, click here: https://letsrecap.com/ 

January 10, 2017

Benefits of using Fake Twitter.

Eric Curtis has a great blog post titled Write Less to Write Betterwith Google Docs.

There are times when it is beneficial to encourage students to write Less than they normally do. It’s important for students to be able to “distill their ideas down to just the most important, relevant, clear, and concise words. By putting limits on the number of words or characters our students can use, this forces students to:

• Summarize key points
• Select what is most important
• Choose words that best convey meaning • Restate concepts
• Avoid unnecessary filler and fluff” (Curtis)

In the blog post, Eric provides tips on using Google Docs to help limit the number of words using the doc tool Word Count. His instructions are very clear and practical. However, I like his “Compose a Tweet” template better as it ties into how students are communicating online.

In the same vein, Alice Keeler has a blog post titled Mock Twitter Chat with Your Students. Alice recommends using Google Docs as well and provides excellent instructions on how to conduct your own Mock Twitter Chat. 

January 3, 2017

From Tony Vincent comes this easy-to- use graphic.... 

If you are curious on how YOU can use QR codes in your classroom, here is a post by Jessica, an elementary teacher, from her blog titled What I Have Learned Teaching:

https://
www.whatihavelearnedteaching.c om/using-qr-codes-in-the- classroom/ 

January 3, 2017

Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO)

Thinking Charts 

Karen Ferguson created Thinking Charts in Google Drawings and has graciously offered them to other teachers to use for free. 

You can see all of her teaching charts here:
https://goo.gl/3w15Zg

(SOLO: A taxonomy of learning being utilized in New Zealand and other countries. It is an alternative to the Blooms Taxonomy that is widely used in the United States. For more information: https://goo.gl/tr4vkH)

Thinking Chart = Graphic Organizer

A thinking chart is basically a graphic organizer. Eric Curtis new blog post on Control Alt Achieve contains many graphic organizers specifically created for Language Arts. All where created using Google Drawing and can easily be shared with students through Google Classroom as either an attachment to an announcement or as an assignment for them to complete.

Take a look at the blog post here:
https://goo.gl/oijF1C

If you want to learn how to create your own, click here:
https://youtu.be/0LjVHorFaQ4

December 13, 2016

Introducing Team Drives!
A new feature recently added by Google is the ability to now create a Team Drive within Google Plus. (not all domains will have this feature yet but it is coming in early 2017!)

What does Team Drive do?
Team Drive was designed to be used by large groups of people or clubs as an easy way to share information without cluttering up a person’s shared folder or google drive. The biggest issue with a common shared folder dealt with ownership of a file. If the owner of important documents leaves a school, their files will be removed if their account is deleted. This means any files or documents shared to others will automatically disappear. In Team Drive, all files created are automatically owned by the team members....not one person.

How does Team Drive work?
Once your Google Plus administrator sets up Team Drive for your domain, it will appear as an option in your Google Drive account. Creating a Team Drive is similar to creating a new folder or a new class in Google Classroom. The interface (or look) of Team Drive will be slightly different. It looks more like Google Classroom but looks to be really easy to navigate and use.

To Learn More: https://goo.gl/y48L11 

December 13, 2016

Google Doc Tips and Tricks 

Below is a list of a few of my favorite Google Doc tips and tricks.

Changing Fonts:
In Google Docs, the top fonts are displayed at the very top. But most students do not realize they can find more if they click More Fonts at the bottom of the drop down menu. If you want to see all of the fonts in an easy menu, head over to fonts.google.com. What is great about this site is not only can you see the fonts in all of the different versions but it will give you recommendations as to which fonts go together. There are many different fonts to choose from but it is best to only use 3 or less in your document.

Use Hidden Tables:
Sometimes, you find yourself wanting to have text in a document in more than three columns. Or, you want some of the text in the middle of the document to be in columns while the rest is in a regular paragraph form. To do this easily, insert a table. Decide how many columns you want to use. Once you have the text inserted into the columns, hide the lines by double clicking (or right clicking) anywhere inside the table. Go to Table Properties and change the Table Border to match the background of the document and select Save.

Add Table of Contents
Google Docs will add a table of contents for your document. To make this work, on every section you want to show up in the table of documents, pull down the box that says Normal Text and select Heading. When you are done, go to the top of the document and select the Insert tool. Clear at the bottom is the selection for Insert Table of Contents. Select either the table in a number form or with links to the section of the document. 

December 6, 2016

It’s Back!

Quickly and easily cite sources in Google Docs

Around September, Google replaced the Research tool with a new one called Explore. Explore was designed to provide suggestions to help the user in creating a better final product. But educators quickly discovered the Explore tool was lacking some critical components students and teachers came to depend upon. One of those was the ability to quickly and easily cite sources as well as create footnotes in the Google Doc.

Recently, G Suite has released many new updates including the return of citations as footnotes being a part of Explore. You can change the format of your citation from MLA, APA, and Chicago.

(hint: Explore does bring websites & images based upon what has previously been typed in the document but I still find it’s best is to teach students how to use the search bar at the top and do their own advanced Google search to find exactly what they need from a reliable source.)

For more information on how to use the Google Explore feature, click here: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/2481802