Many people ask, how do you keep up to date with everything that is going on? Technology is always changing. Well, my answer is always quite long. I feel passionately about technology and WANT to keep up to date, it's not something that one can just hear about and wait until you know EVERYTHING about it before using it in the classroom, learn enough to keep students safe and jump right in. If you wait until you have mastered it, you will be outdated, often students if they are engaged will want to discover how it all works and be willing to share with their peers. One thing that I do to stay up to date is follow many different blogs, when I attend a conference I will often hear of new bloggers or things to follow. One of these blogs is Global Digital Citizen Foundation. Often blogs (even like this one) allow you subscribe, because let's be honest who has time to keep checking blogs and while I know there are blog aggregates out there, you still need to VISIT the website. In ...
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Rather than bombarding you with email after email or forwarding you a newsletter that you may not have time to read, I will send out monthly highlights of things that I thought were noteworthy. In Issue V, 2017 Google for Education highlighted the new Science Journal with a brief article: Science Journal on Android and iOS Let your class explore the world like scientists with the Science Journal app. Students can measure real time data and record their observations in a digital notebook. The redesigned app is now available on iOS and Android with over 20 new activities from educational partners. What does this mean for you? Well, if you teach science this tool is amazing! While it does have an app, many of the lessons can be used right in front of your students! There are over 20 activities that walk students through the Scientific Process. What about the App? So, I downloaded the app on my phone. The look and feel of it is similar to Google...
How to Reserve a Chrome Cart at PASD Go to your Google Calendar Click Use the following format: Untitled Event: Last Name Date:Specify what date Time: Please only reserve the cart for the whole day 8a-3p or half day 8a-11:30a or 11:30a-3p because honestly you are not going to be running across the building to wheel a cart full of Chromebooks in the sea of students in 3-4 minutes Where you would add "Guests", click on "Rooms, etc." Click "Save" Here is a short video showing this (no audio)
I challenged myself this year in completing stop motion animation projects with all of my computer skills. I started with the 3rd grade so that I had an ideal expectation of what students could complete. Third grade had to do a short video with StikBots that had something to do with reading. 4th grade needed to animate their letters. 5th grade had to tell a story of some sort. Prep Work For myself I needed to develop a way to roll this out to students who may not be aware of what Stop Motion was. I created this presentation . The video was a little older, but had a good grasp on the basics. For the students, I broke it down into different days. I know from previous tries in photography that if I give them the tool right away they will forget about the process. The planning process is important. First they needed to come up with a story board and plan what was going to happen. Production The students picked up on the Stop Motion Animator Chrome App very quickly. The most di...
Do you use Google Docs with your class to have them collaborate on a project, story, etc.? Ever wonder who did all of the work, sure we can click on Revision History, but that can take some time. Well, this new Add-On might be of interest to you. So, I saw this posted in my Google+ Google Apps for Education Community. (Fantastic Community, have you heard how great Google+ can be for PLNs?) It is called Revision History Analytic s and I think that it has the possibility to change your life. When it works (I have had glitches running it in Sheets and Presentations) it will give you a wealth of information. Who made the most changes? Who contributed the most? It gives you this data in a sidebar! By clicking on Total Words (at the bottom of the sidebar) you can see what an individual did. In my opinion, this is one tool that could make using Google Docs in the classroom just that much better!