Friday Fun Finds 12/4/15

Canvas

Here is a simple way to get your students using Canvas, create a “What to do when I’m finished” page. Students can access educationally relevant activities on their own. This page can be as simple as a list of weblinks or take it to the next level by embedding a Symbaloo. Contact me if you need any help with Canvas.

Google

Find out how your students can enter the Doodle 4 Google Contest

Websites

Eric Jensen’s Brighter Brain Bulletin outlines THE SECRET to the WINTER TIME BLUES...is to join in with your students when you are orchestrating a classroom energizer! When you exercise in class, no worries about doing it at home! :) Plus, you will have less stress, feel more energized and be happier.

Here are 5 no prep ways you can turn just about any lower level thinking or rote practice worksheet (like a multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank quiz, or math drill workbook page) into an activity that’s collaborative and includes higher level thinking skills.

Fantastic Friday Finds 11/13/15

Chromebooks

Many people have asked for a device that will allow the Chromebooks to hook to the projector. That device is called a dongle, which according to the dictionary, a dongle is a small piece of hardware that attaches to a computer, TV, or other electronic device in order to enable additional functions. The dongle you need is a HDMI Male to VGA Female Adapter Converter.

Canvas

You can delay posting an Announcement until a specific date by selecting the Delay Posting option and setting a date and time.

Google

Booktrack Classroom - Read and create stories with a soundtrack - Google for Education teachers and students qualify for $200 in free ebooks if you register by December 1st .

4 Math Add ons for Google Docs that allow teachers and students to use Google and math together. You can add any of these features to a Google Doc by selecting Add-ons --- Get Add-ons.

g(Math) allows you to create expressions and graphs which you can insert directly into your Google Doc. Check out gmath guru for help.

Calculator is a simple calculator

WizKids CAS is a graphing calculator that you access from the sidebar of a Google Do

Formula Editor is a simple tool that lets you type and edit mathematical equations in the sidebar of any Google doc

Website

Buncee is a tool that students can use to create multimedia stories.  Students create their Buncee stories by adding custom background templates to Buncee slides. To each template students can add animations, pictures, text, drawings, and videos. Buncee provides a large gallery of media that students can use in their stories. Here’s a Quick video tutorial.

Fantastic Friday Fun 10/30/15

Websites to Check out

Dotstorming is a neat tool that combines a bit of Padlet with a polling tool. On Dotstorming you can create a space for people to post digital sticky notes just like Padlet. What makes Dotstorming different is that once the notes are posted, you can have people vote for their favorite notes. Unlike Padlet, you can not embed this into your Canvas course but you can put the link in your Canvas course

10 Fun-Filled Formative Assessment Ideas for checking in with students during a project, class, or semester to assess their learning and see if content or instruction needs adjusting.

Histography is an amazing interactive timeline spanning today through the beginning of recorded history. The timeline is divided into fifteen categories including war, politics, discoveries, inventions, and art.

Chrome extension

Flashtabs is a great flashcard Chrome extension tool to help users learn something new by popping up a card each time a browser tab is opened.

Happy Friday

Happy Friday

This week’s Wonderful Weekend Websites will include some Tech Tips.

Canvas

The first grading period is in the books. Yea!!  Grading periods have been added to your Canvas Courses. To access them, click the Grades link on the left side navigation, then select the appropriate grading period. FYI - the first nine weeks grades will display under the All Grading Period drop down.

Chrome Extensions

Extensions are mini-programs that run in the Google Chrome browser. Therefore no matter what device you are logged into, your teacher desktop or your Chromebook they will be accessible from the toolbar. You can add extensions from the Chrome Web Store. Be careful not to use too many extensions because it can slow down your computer.

Extensity will allow users to easily turn extensions on and off. This is one I use all of the time.

Readability takes away distractions so students can read articles.

Open Dyslexic is an extension that converts text on screen into a font that some people with Dyslexia prefer

Read and Write for Google gives users a highlighter with four different color options.

Google

Add-ons add more functionality to Google Documents, spreadsheets and forms. Once add-ons are installed, you can manage each one individually, and turn them on and off at any time.

Easy Accents allows users to easily insert accents for different languages directly from a sidebar in their Google Docs.

Table Formatter allows users to use MS Word features in your Google Docs by customizing table styles and backgrounds.

Websites to Check out

Use Thematic to create a picture story of up to 20 pictures with a line or two of text.

Zing is offers thousands of free fiction and nonfiction ebooks to teachers and students.

Tuesday Tech Tip 10/6/15

Professional Development eCourses

If you had a difficult time choosing what training to attend for the Oct 26th Professional Development Day, don’t worry there are several eCourses available that cover many of the same topics. You can register in Eduphroia for Chromebook Basics, Google Docs, Sheets & Slides, Google Mail, Contacts & Calendar, Canvas Pages, Modules & Files or Canvas Calendar, Assignments & Syllabus.  

Google

It can be tricky to put math symbols in a Google Presentation. There are a couple of Google Chrome extensions (Daum Equation Editor or TeX equation editor) that will allow you to save the equation into your Google Drive so you can insert it into your Google Presentation.

Where’s the Flea Market?

Forney ISD Flea Market is a place for all district employees to post things they would like to sell.  Only district employees have access to this site.

1. To access the Flea Market clock on the link below:

https://goo.gl/ES4sZs

2. To reply to a post, please be sure and choose the arrow in the top right hand corner of the message and choose reply privately to the author.  It will then send a reply directly to that person’s inbox.

3. Each post will be deleted after it has been active for 2 weeks.

Wonderful Weekend Websites 10/2/15

Plickers is a great tool for quickly gathering feedback from students. Students hold up QR codes. Students hold up QR codes to respond to your prompts. You use your iOS or Android device to scan the students' cards and see their answers on your screen. This method allows you to have all students respond to your questions without their classmates knowing their answers because all they see are their classmates holding cards that look nearly identical. If you have used Plickers in the past you might want to check out some of the new features for teachers.

Thinglink offers a web platform and mobile app for creating and sharing interactive images. This allows teachers or students to add content inside any image - including photos, video and audio players, web links, polls, text and more - that appear in the image when shared and viewed. Click here for ways to use Thinglink in the classroom. Thinglinks can be embedded into Canvas.

Tuesday Tech Tip 9/29/15

Canvas - A rubric is an assessment tool for communicating expectations of quality. Rubrics are typically comprised of rows and columns. Rows are used to define the various criteria being used to assess an assignment. Columns are used to define levels of performance for each criterion. In Canvas, rubrics can be added to graded discussions, quizzes, and assignments. Rubrics can be created and stored at both the course-level and at account-levels within an organization. click here for some  Click here for rubric writing tips and here to access the Canvas rubric training video.

Chrome App -  Read & Write is a Google Chrome Web App that increases the accessibility of the text of documents in your Google Drive account.  The Read & Write tab appear at the top of your browser window whenever you have a document open in Google Drive. Clicking the tab will open a menu of accessibility options. These include a picture dictionary and a talking dictionary,  it can also read the text of your documents aloud.

Google - Last week we learned how to use Google Drawings to add some pizzazz to your signature. Students can use Google Drawings to work collaboratively to create mind maps. They can use the tools to create the maps, then share with their teacher who can use the commenting tool to give feedback. Mind maps can be used to brainstorm, organize information,check for understanding or as an aide in comprehension.

Wonderful Weekend Websites 9-25-15

Short videos from can be quite helpful in introducing topics to students and or reinforcing concepts that you have taught.

Vibby allows you to break YouTube videos into segments and insert comments into those segments. To segment a YouTube video simply grab the URL for the video and paste into the Vibby editor. Once inserted into Vibby you can highlight a segment on the video timeline. Vibby can then play only the sections you've highlighted or the entire video. Click on a highlighted section to add a comment to it. Videos edited through Vibby can be  embedded into Canvas

Check out the TED-Ed YouTube channel where you will find a number of curated playlists. These lessons can be sorted by grade level by choosing the Student drop down menu. If you want to make your own you have a YouTube channel tied to your Google account.

I have had many inquiries about how to record a test for students. There is an easy-to-use app in the Chrome Store. Search the store for  Audio Recorder, install it to Chome. Access it by using the rubrics cube in the bookmark bar, then click the microphone to start and stop and click the save button. It will save in your default download folder.  

Quick Chrome tip: change the location of your download folder by going to the Chrome menu icon (the 3 lines upper right) -- settings -- show advanced settings -- put a checkmark in “Ask where to save each file before downloading” or change where the “Download location” to Google Drive.  

Tuesday Tech Tip 9/9/15

Canvas  

1. All courses need to be published. You can create a front page informing students and parents to check the calendar for events and Parent Portal for grades. There is a Sample Home Page that you can use and modify in the Canvas Commons. Click the Commons button in the header, then search in Forney ISD for Sample Home page.

2. If the Canvas course is public make sure that you are using the course that TEAMS created because it is the one with students in it. You can tell which one is the TEAMS created one because it has  “S1” next to.

3. After students in grades 2-12 students have changed their passwords they will need to provide this new password to their parents so the parents can create their observer account.

4. You can embed content for students inside of a Canvas page by using a Thinklink, Padlet or Symbaloo. Contact me if you want to learn how.

Google Mail

1. To make Google Mail as your default email
1. Browse to Gmail
2. Click the double diamond shaped icon in search bar at the top of your browser
3. When prompted to "Allow Gmail to open all email links?", select "Use Gmail," and click "Done."

Wifi

Please refer to Howard Carlin’s email from Sept 4 for the instructions on how to connect to the new ForneyISD network. It is VERY important to do this, if you or your students want to use a cellphone or tablet on the district WiFi.

Fantastic Friday Finds 5/29/15

Here’s some websites for your kids:

1. Click here for 1,000+ Apps, Apptivities and Projects to do with your kids this summer
2. A Scientist’s Curiosity Cabinet for the older kids
3. Open and Go Science Lessons for 3rd through 5th Grade

Now some things for you:

1. 9 free ways to grow as an educator this summer.
2. Cometdocs for converting documents and sharing them with others.
3. Sign up for monthly Tips for Teaching with Technology from Marzano.
4. 50 Alternatives to Lecturing, if you need help with any of these ideas contact me.

Fantastic Friday Finds 5/22/15

LucidPress is an online poster maker for everyone. They can be done collaboratively using items in your Google Drive. There are a library of templates as well as options for layering images, and adding videos to your projects.

What’s a Chromebook?

Chromebooks: Basics from youtube

Chromebook basics: Basics on thinglink   

Camp Wonderopolis is a free online summer-learning resource that offers 42 exciting units of STEM-based Wonders. It is targeted for grades 2-8 and it starts June 15th.  Make sure you register.

TenMarks is offering their family math program for free. The program is designed to review concepts from the past year, and introduce concepts for the year ahead.

Fantastic Friday Finds 4/24/15

Now that most of us have made the move to Google. Here’s a blog post on 4 things you can do to organize your drive.

Show your students the power of Google Drive while conducting research!

Check out the Connected Principals blog of shared thoughts of school administrators who share one goal; what is best for students. The #Leadership20 Series will be one to follow.

Here’s a unit for 7th graders on teaching them how to speak well.

Not that we have survived testing week, we all need to  “Dial up and Hug.”

Fantastic Friday Finds 4/17

http://www.supportingeducation.org/2013/05/20/technology-in-the-classroom-help-or-hindrance/

Tech Tips 
Videograbby is a youtube downloader web app that allows you to download your favorite videos right into your hard drive or Google Drive so that you can watch them later, edit them, transfer them to your mobile device, etc. It also allows you to convert a youtube video into MP3 format and also support High Quality mode. VideoGrabby was made with simplicity and usability in mind. This web app should not be used with copyrighted videos.

ListenCurrent harnesses the power of public radio. It makes it easy to bring authentic voices and engaging non-fiction stores to the classroom.

Google Tip - 71 Gmail tips and tricks (including some less known features, secrets, and settings) to enhance your Google Mail experience. Just a reminder, some features may not be enabled our educational domain. 

Somethings to thing about:
This article sheds some light on some common claims about technology in the classroom. Is it a distraction or not, you decide.

Whether we like it or not the world is going digital. Every where we look, except in our school buildings, people are connected digitally. This article discusses how and why we should go digital.

Fantastic Friday Finds 3/20/15

Technology Tips

1. Check out these social media tips and best practices - What No One Tells You About Social Media in Education
2. Have you heard of this new “anonymous use” app that we all need to be aware of.

Teaching Tips

1. Do you know the difference between Proficiency Scales vs Rubrics?
2. Here are ten questions that help illicit the most powerful reflective responses from students.