While pursuing teaching degrees, educators are introduced to various learning theorists and their insights about how people learn best. Some familiar names include Piaget, Bandura, Vygotsky, and Gardner. 

Although understanding these learning theories is still important, aspiring educators also need to become familiar with theories, models, and approaches that provide insight on how technology, social media, and the internet impact learning. Digital learning theories and approaches, such as RAT, SAMR, TPACK, Digital Blooms, Connectivism, Design Thinking and Peeragogy help teachers develop curricula that gets students to use technology to research, curate, annotate, create, innovate, problem-solve, collaborate, campaign, reform and think critically. These are skills outlined in Shelly Terrell’s Hacking Digital Learning Strategies with EdTech Missions.

Digital learning approaches consider what students are currently doing online and allow teachers to design curricula to help students gain the digital skills they need to thrive in a digitally connected world. 

Below are some useful links to discover more about these approaches. 

1. The RAT Model

The RAT model is a way of looking at technology and how it has or has not altered instruction. The “R” stands for replacement, and in this mode of instruction technology is just replacing a previous tool for instruction but in no way changing the instructional practices or learning that occurs. The “A” is amplification, which refers to when class instructional practices remain the same but the use of technology increases the lesson’s efficiency and effectiveness or reach. The “T” is transformation, and is when technology is used to reinvent certain aspects of instruction in new and innovative ways.

2. SAMR

The SAMR model stands for substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition, and looks at four tiers of tech implementation. Educators frequently have a tendency to focus on the first two tiers, essentially converting previous instructional practices into a technological format: for instance, recording a lecture and posting it online, or posting PDFs of previously printed materials. The second two tiers entail using technology to more fundamentally change instruction. 

3. The TPACK Framework

TPACK stands for technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. The framework examines the interplay of three grouped areas of content knowledge (CK), pedagogy (PK), and technology (TK), and explores the ways these areas intersect. While it is often compared to SAMR, these are quite different models, with TPACK being a less linear way of thinking about incorporating technology into teaching. 

4. Digital Blooms

Bloom’s Taxonomy was created by Benjamin Bloom and his collaborators in the 1950s as a framework for categorizing educational goals that is often depicted as a pyramid with each level requiring higher levels of thinking in order to achieve mastery. Over time, the original nouns used by Bloom and colleagues were replaced with active verbs. Now at the base of the pyramid is the word remember, and it builds up in order to apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. The new framework has also been updated to incorporate technology.  

5. Connectivism

Introduced in 2005 by George Siemens and Stephen Downes, this learning theory holds that students should learn how to combine thoughts, theories, and other information in a useful way. The theory builds on the idea that technology has increased the speed of our access to information, and our constant connectedness should be harnessed to help students make choices about learning, collaborating, and learning from diverse sources, including sources on social media. 

6. Design Thinking 

Popularized by tech companies, design thinking takes engineering and artistic processes and applies these to other fields, such as education. Using this framework, educators and students can identify challenges, gather information, generate potential solutions, refine ideas, and test solutions. This framework can be helpful for department, school, or team planning, as well as class planning or for individual lessons. 

7. Peeragogy

As any educator can tell you, there’s nothing quite like peer learning. Peeragogy, also known as paragogy, is a collection of best practices for peer-to-peer learning that seeks to help educators overcome some of the obstacles to effective peer learning such as peers who don’t produce useful and/or supportive feedback. 

Resources

• What is RAT? by developer, Dr. Joan Hughes
• SAMR and Digital Blooms resources by Kathy Schrock
• The Peeragogy Handbook with founder Howard Rheingold
• The TPACK Framework
• Design thinking is a process for creative problem solving

Challenge: Explore one of these digital learning theories to see how you can make at least one change enhance the way you integrate technology.

The original version of this story was cross posted at teacherrebootcamp.com

Shelly Terrell is an education consultant, technology trainer, and author. Read more at teacherrebootcamp.com

The best Google tools for English language learners are now more powerful than ever before and can break down any communication barriers that might exist. 

As more non-English speaking students require support, the right digital tools can make all the difference, both for their learning and for reducing teacher time requirements, so too helping the rest of the class.

These tools are organized into a host of categories, from translation and dictionary tools to speech-to-text and summarization tools, to name just a few.

This guide aims to explain some of the best Google tools for English language learners and help to show the best ways to use them in a learning environment.

Google Tools: Translate in Google Docs

Since Google Docs is free, easy to use, and widely integrated in many schools already, it makes sense to take advantage of its features. One such feature that's useful for English language learners is the built-in translate tool, which uses all the smarts of Google Translate but right there in the document.

• Best Google Docs Add-Ons For Teachers

This can mean translating an entire document or just a section. Since teachers are able to share with multiple students, they can tailor the language to suit the reader. This allows for a consistent message to be shared across the class with clear understanding.

To use this, from within Google Docs, go to "Tools" and then select "Translate document." Select the language you want and a title for the new doc, as this makes a copy, then select "Translate." This new doc can then be shared with those students that speak that language.

That's how to do an entire doc, but for sections you'll need the Translate add-on.

Use Google Translate

Google Translate can be a very useful tool in class for one-on-one communication with students. It allows one person to speak and the other hears the translation in their native language. They can then answer in that language and the other person hears it in their language. This back and forth makes for easy and quick spoken communication. But it can also be used in documents.

If you want to create one document to share with the class, say, but want a mix of languages. Perhaps encouraging everyone to read certain parts in English, but clarifying more complex parts in native languages, you'll need the Google Translate add-on for Google Docs. 

With this, you can type or dictate the text that you want translated, using the drop-down menu to select the languages you need. Follow these steps to get that setup:

• First install the add-on in Docs by clicking "Add-ons," then "Get add-ons," then searching for the "Translate" add-on.
• Alternately you can use this direct link - Add-on link
• After installation, run the tool by clicking "Add-ons" then "Translate" then "Start."
• You can now select text in your document, and which languages you want to translate from and to.
• Finally click the "Translate" button to do the translation.

As an alternative to typing, students can use the Docs Voice Typing tool to speak to Google Docs and have their words typed. This can be helpful when the student is not sure of the spelling of words, and can serve as an excellent way to practice spoken fluency. 

To do this simply select "Tools" and "Voice Typing," then when the microphone icon is selected and lit up, it's listening and typing. Touch again when you need to stop.

Go directly to Google Translate

For more translation features, you can use the full Google Translate website, which provides additional tools and options including translation of typed or pasted text, spoken words, uploaded files, and entire websites. To take advantage of that, here's what you need to do:

• Go to the Google Translate website.
• You can choose the languages you want to translate to and from.
• In the box, you can type in or paste your original text, or you can click the microphone icon to speak the text.
• As your translated results come up, you can can click on portions of the text to see alternate translations.
• Alternately, you can paste in the web address for a site you would like to have translated in full.
• Or you can even upload and entire file by clicking "translate a document."

Use Google Translate in Chrome

Another great tool for easy and quick translations is the Google Translate Chrome extension. This tool will provide a pop-up translation of any selected text on a website, as well as the option to have the text read aloud. Here's how to install and use that:

• First install the Google Translate extension from the Chrome web store at: Chrome web store link
• Once the extension is installed, right-click on the extension and choose "Options" to set your language. This will tell the extension what language to translate into.
• While on the options screen, enable the feature for "Display icon that I can click to show pop-up."
• Now select any text on a webpage and then click the pop-up translate icon to get a translation.
• Additionally you can click the speaker icon to have the text read aloud.
• You can also click on the extension to translate an entire page.

Go mobile with Google Translate on your smartphone

For translation tools on-the-go, Google's mobile Translate app provides lots of other options for entering text, including speaking, handwriting, and even using your camera. Here's how it works:

• First, download the Google Translate app for Android or iOS.
• Next, choose the language you speak and the language you wish to translate to and from.
• You can now use the microphone icon to speak in your language and the app will then speak the translation.
• Or use the double microphone icon for a live conversation between two different languages.
• You can use the doodle icon to hand write in your language, which the app will translate and speak in the other language.
• You can use the camera icon to point your device at any printed text in one language and it will translate live into your other chosen language.

Use Google Dictionary in Chrome

When reading online, students may come across words they are unfamiliar with. With the Google Dictionary extension they can simply double-click on any word to get a pop-up definition and, often, a pronunciation as well. Here's how to do that:

• Install the Google Dictionary Chrome extension from the Chrome web store.
• After installation, right-click on the extension and choose "Options" to set your language. This will allow you to have the definitions displayed in your primary language.
• Now just double-click on any word on a webpage and a pop-up will appear with the definition.
• If there is also a speaker icon, you can click that to hear the word pronounced.

Use the Read&Write extension

Read&Write is a great Chrome extension that provides a wide range of tools, many of which can be very useful for someone learning a new language, including text-to-speech, dictionary, picture dictionary, translation, and more. Here's how to get setup:

• Install the Read&Write extension from the Chrome Web Store.
• With the extension installed, you can click on it when inside or a Google Document or on any website.
• This will open a toolbar with a variety of buttons.

Some of the useful tools include the following:

Play is the text-to-speech button. This will read aloud the text you have selected or the entire page or document, which can be a great way to improve comprehension of a second language by hearing the text read aloud.

Dictionary will give you a definition of a selected word in a pop-up window. Picture Dictionary provides clipart images for a selected word in a pop-up window.

Translator offers a translation of a selected word in a pop-up window in the language of your choice.

In the Options menu, you can choose the voice and speed used for text-to-speech, which can make it much easier for a student to understand the words being spoken. In the menu you can also choose the language to be used for translations.

Get summarization tools

Another great way for students to understand text is to get a simplified summary of the content. Many tools are available that can create an abridged version of longer text. Using any of these can help a student get the gist of an article before working on reading the entire original text. 

Some great options include SMMRY, TLDR, Resoomer, Internet Abridged, and Auto Highlight.

Screen record for a second look

When students are working in a second language, it can be beneficial to give them other ways to express themselves other than just writing. Recording class guidance so they can watch when they want and as many times as needed, is also helpful.

Tools that record audio or video of the student can be a great way to let them share their understanding, while also practicing spoken fluency. Ones that also record the screen are ideal for teachers guiding student on how to use a tool or carry out a task.

Many excellent tools can be used for this purpose. Screencastify is a particularly powerful option that is available as a Chrome extension. Check out our Screencastify guide here and then you can grab the extension from the Chrome Web Store here.

• Best English Language Learners Lessons and Activities
• Best Tools for Teachers

If you are using Google Forms to give quizzes and tests in your classroom, you are likely aware that some students have figured out various ways to "game" forms to get a better grade. But you can stop cheating on Google Forms using some of these top tips.

While Google Forms can make a teacher's life easier, in offering a system that allows for quick creation of quizzes, it can also create an opportunity to cheat. That said, if you take the necessary precautions listed below, it's well worth using. For one thing, you can use a vast array of pre-written quizzes and templates, making it easier to set a quiz without taking up lots of prep time.

Want to learn more? Check out our feature, What is Google Forms and How Can It Be Used by Teachers?

Before we go into the ways to prevent cheating, be aware of the issue by looking below at some of the ways students try to cheat Google Forms:

1. Open a tab to look up answers
2. Preview your form before class to look up answers
3. Send questions to their friends
4. Share answers with friends
5. Take screenshots of your the quiz questions
6. View the HTML page source to find answers
7. Look at a friends screen to select answers
8. Right-click on words to check definitions and spelling
9. Share answers with classmates during passing time
10. Write down "cheats" on their hand or paper

• What is Google Forms and How Can It Be Used by Teachers?
• How to Stop Cheating in Remote Learning
• 10 Sites for Checking Plagiarism

5 Ways to Combat Cheating with Google Forms

1. Shuffle answer choices to block screen creepers

When asking a multiple choice question, click on the "snowman" at the bottom right to find the "shuffle option order" feature that will randomize the order of the answer choices in your question.

Shuffling answer choices will make it more difficult for "screen creepers" to copy answers from a classmate.

Note: Google Forms does have a "shuffle question order" feature, however using it can lead to issues. I recommend shuffling answers over shuffling questions.  

2. Use page sections to block assessment previews 

Add sections to your quiz to prevent students from previewing a form before class. This is a common problem if you post your quiz through Google Classroom to all of your sections early in the day. 

You can take this a step further by adding a "password" to your form to prevent students from moving ahead until you are ready. 

An easy way to do this is to collect their personal information (name/section) on the first page of the form, but require a password before they can access the quiz question. 

Set up a password by adding a short-answer question and using the data validation feature to require a specific number or phrase. 

Note: This is not a 100% secure solution and should not be used to protect sensitive information. 

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3. Use page breaks to create alternative assessment paths

Google Forms doesn't have a question bank feature to create different assessments for each student. However, you can create a similar experience by creating a branched form. 

First, add an ungraded multiple choice question in your quiz: “pick a number,” “pick a color,” etc. 

Next, set up 3 to 5 different sections to your quiz using the section feature mentioned in tip #2 above. Add as many questions as you like to each section.

Finally, add a "go-to" rule to direct students to a different section of the based on their response to the ungraded question that you added. 

4. Prevent cheating by asking better questions

Don't limit yourself to multiple choice questions. By broadening the types of questions you make it more difficult to cheat while at the same time better testing the students' knowledge. 

Consider options such as:

• Sequence questions - Use the checkbox grid question type to ask students to sequence or arrange items in a list.
• Matching questions - Use the multiple choice grid question type to create a matching question (great for vocabulary quizzes!)
• Reading Passage - Use the title/text element to add a short reading passage. 
• Video question - Have students watch a video and then answer questions about it (great for math and world language). 
• Image question - Images can be used as the question stem or question choices (great for science, math, social studies, and elementary students).
• Free response / short answer - If a student can answer all of the multiple choice questions correctly, but can't articulate 2 to 3 sentences on the same topic, then something is wrong.

5. Enable locked quiz mode

Locked quiz mode is one of many tools you have to protect the integrity of your assessments. When used in combination with the tips above, you have done your part to protect the integrity of your classroom quizzes. 

Locked mode prevents students from accessing external resources while taking a quiz. Their tabs, extensions, chrome apps, and screenshot functions will be disabled during the duration of the quiz. 

You can turn on this feature the settings page on your Google Form OR when assigned through Google Classroom.

If you use some/all of the tips listed above, you have done your part to protect the integrity of your assessments and encourage your students to practice academic honesty. 

There is no way to be certain that students can't cheat on an assessment. Ultimately, they are harming themselves and their academic growth. Our job is to encourage, instruct and train them to do their best and show good character, even when they have the opportunity to cheat.

• What is Google Forms and How Can It Be Used by Teachers?
• How to Stop Cheating in Remote Learning
• 10 Sites for Checking Plagiarism

Why should teachers integrate augmented reality (AR) apps and sites into their curricula? With manipulable 3D visuals, augmented reality apps and sites inject a wow factor into any subject, increasing kids’ engagement and enthusiasm for learning.  In addition, recent research suggests that AR can foster greater empathy in users. Many of these AR apps and sites are free or inexpensive. 

 iOS and Android AR Apps

1. 3DBear AR
   This super-creative AR design app offers lesson plans, challenges, 3D models, social media sharing, and 3D printing capability. The 3DBear website provides video tutorials, curriculum, and distance learning resources for educators. Great for PBL, design and computational thinking. Free and paid plans, with 30-day free trial.  iOS   Android 
   
   
2. Civilisations AR
   Based on the BBC Two art history program Civilisations, the Civilisations AR app helps users explore masterpieces from ancient Egypt to the Renaissance. Themes -- including faith, progress, and the human body -- are illuminated through the investigation of the featured 41 artifacts. This research tool can ignite kids’ interest in history, art, or science. Free. iOS Android  
   
   
3. Quiver - 3D Coloring App
   Quiver turns a special coloring book into a 3D augmented reality experience. Users print AR-enabled blank coloring sheets through the app or the website, then color each with crayons, colored pencils, or oil pastels. Activate the quiver app to bring the pages to life. Free app, free and paid coloring packs. iOS  Android 
   
   
4. PopAR World Map
   Explore the wonders of the world, from wild animals to international culture to historic landmarks. Features include 360-degree view (VR mode), interactive gameplay, and 3D models. Free. iOS Android 
   
   
5. SkyView® Explore the Universe
   One of the most popular AR astronomy apps,  SkyView® Explore the Universe makes it easy to identify galaxies, stars, constellations, planets, and satellites in the night sky, while the AR mode allows users to spot objects day or night. Great for out-of-the-way places, as no WiFi, data signal, or GPS is required. Try the Time Travel setting to see the sky of ancient and future ages. $1.99. iOS  Android  From the same developer, the similar SkyView® Lite is free.
   
   
6. CyberChase Shape Quest! 
   Based on the PBS Kids math show CyberChase, CyberChase Shape Quest! combines games, puzzles and 3D augmented reality to practice geometry and spatial memory skills. Three different games and 80 puzzles provide lots of variety and skill levels. Free. iOS Android 

iOS AR Apps

1. Augment
   A simple app for viewing 3D AR models. Users upload their own 3D models and can manipulate each one in various ways with the app. Augment works well for design-related subjects and presentations; resources are available for students and teachers to get started.  Free. 
   
   
2. East of the Rockies
   A beautiful story app from the National Film Board of Canada. Written by acclaimed author Joy Kogawa, this interactive tale follows the journey of a Japanese-Canadian family interned during WWII. Free teachers guide in English and French. $3.99
   
   
3. Fetch! Lunch Rush
   A fun multiplayer game based on the PBS KIDS TV series, FETCH!, in which players try to keep up with the sushi orders. Designed to supplement national standards for first and second grade math curricula. Free. 
   
   
4. Froggipedia
   An impressive AR anatomy app that covers every phase of frog life, from a single-celled egg to a full-grown frog. Dissect and examine the AR frog’s lifelike internal organs using a finger or Apple pencil with this 2018 iPad App of the Year. $3.99
   
   
5. Sky Guide  
   Winner of the Apple Design Award 2014, Sky Guide allows users to instantly locate stars, planets, satellites, and other celestial objects in the present, past, or future. Augmented Reality mode makes it easier to visualize and identify constellations. Works with or without WiFi, cellular service, or GPS. $2.99
   
   
6. Wonderscope
   This highly engaging interactive story app puts kids at the center of the unfolding action, allowing them to move around, become part of the story, and explore details by tapping on objects. Free for the first story; additional stories are $4.99 each

Websites for AR

1. CoSpaces Edu
   A complete 3D, coding, and AR/VR platform for education, CoSpaces Edu provides online tools for teachers and students to create and explore their own augmented worlds. Features include lesson plans and an extensive gallery of CoSpaces created by teachers, students, and the CoSpacesEdu team. AR requires iOS or Android device and free app. Free basic plan for up to 29 students.  
   
   
2. Lifeliqe
   A standards-aligned K-12 science curriculum with lesson plans and eye-popping, sophisticated interactive 3D models. Integrates with Google Drive, Google Classroom, and Microsoft Teams for easy sharing and saving. Prices start at $8 per student annually. 14-day free trial with premium content. 
   
   
3. Metaverse
   An augmented reality creation platform that requires no coding knowledge. Users build, publish, and share AR stories, games, and polls on the platform. Mobile devices are required to run AR programs.  Free with premium options available. iOS Android

Google Slides is a super useful teaching tool that's totally free. In an age of want-it-now impatience, however, sometimes clicking through Slides can be a bit much for students. One way to speak in their digital language while remaining concise and getting your point across is to use an animated GIF. So converting your Google Slides show into an animated GIF is the quickest way to do this and can be done for free.

An animated GIF is essentially an image file, or more accurately a video, which shows a selection of images, like a slide show, in quick succession and on repeat. Crucially, this can be opened on pretty much any device, including smartphones, tablets, and laptops. It's also condensed in size, making it ideal for sharing quickly and easily in emails and beyond.

One tool which allows you to convert a Google Slides document into an animated GIF, for free, is Tall Tweets, created by the awesome Amit Agarwal.

• Google Classroom review
• Google Classroom for teachers
• How to setup Google Classroom

With Tall Tweets you can import a Google Slideshow, set the duration for each slide (as well as some other options), and then create and download an animated GIF version of your slideshow. This can be used with many Google Slides projects to export the final product. 

Many tools to make animated GIFs are available, but it is always helpful to find one that is free and super easy to use. See below for detailed directions on how to use this great tool.

Create Your Google Slideshow

First you need to finish creating the Google Slideshow that you want to convert into an animated GIF. For helpful tips on making the slideshow, check out our Best Student Templates for Google Docs, Slides, Sheets and Drawings.

A key factor to keep in mind is that you may want some slides to last longer, and some to be shorter, when playing as a GIF later. Although you can't make a specific slide last longer, you can make it look like it does. One way to do this is to make multiple copies of the slide, without making any changes to it, so it looks like the scene is lasting longer. Here's exactly how to do that.

• Select the slide you want to last longer.
• Make a copy of the slide by clicking "Slide" and "Duplicate slide", or copy and paste the slide, or press "Ctrl" and "D" (for duplicate).
• Repeat this multiple times to make 5 or 10 copies of the slide (for example).

Later when the slideshow gets converted into a GIF, it will look like the slideshow has paused on this slide for longer. Tall Tweets has a limit of 100 slides when creating the animated GIF, so be sure your slideshow does not exceed that amount.

Convert Google Slides with Tall Tweets

Now you can convert your Google Slideshow into an animated GIF at the Tall Tweets website. Yup, you'll need to head over there to have you Google Slides offering uploaded to convert and download as a GIF. This is a simple enough process, but for clarity, these are the steps.

• Go to Tall Tweets.
• Click the "Select Presentation" button.

• Browse your Google Drive to find and select the slideshow you want to convert.
• The site will now make a copy of each slide. This can take a while depending on how many slides are in your presentation.
• When the slides have all been loaded you can now enter your settings.

GIF Image Width (in pixels) 

For this, enter how large you want your animated GIF to be. The wider the GIF, the larger the file size will be. Very large GIFs will take longer to load on websites, and some services have limits on how large of a GIF you can post. For example the maximum file size for an animated GIF on Twitter is 5MB on mobile and 15MB on web.

Slide Duration (in seconds) 

For this part enter a number for how long each slide should last. For some slideshow (such as comic strips or eBooks) you will want the slides to last long enough for people to read the content. However, for stop-motion animation, you may want the slides to move much quicker, such as 0.1 or 0.25 seconds per slide.

• When ready click the "Create GIF" button.
• When done the animated GIF will display.
• You can save your own copy by clicking the "Save" button, or by simply right-clicking on the GIF and choosing "Save image as…"

• Google Classroom review
• Google Classroom for teachers
• How to setup Google Classroom

The ability to add audio to Google Slides has been one of the most requested features for many years. If you've read our Google Classroom review and are now using that, Slides is a very useful tool to add. Being creative, we have worked around this limitation in the past by embedding YouTube videos in Slides, or using a tool such as Screencastify to record a video of Slides while speaking. Although those workarounds still have their place, it is wonderful that we now have the option to add audio directly to a slide.

Being able to add audio to Google Slides can be used in so many ways in school: 

• Narrating a slideshow
• Reading a story
• Making an instructional presentation
• Providing spoken feedback on writing
• Having student explain a solution
• Giving directions for a HyperSlides project
• And much more

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The only big pain point still left is the actual recording of the audio. You see, even though we can now add audio to a Google slideshow, there isn't a simple built-in recording button. Instead you need to record the audio separately with another program, then save it to Drive, and then add it to a slide.

So that brings up the big question: What are some easy ways to record audio? When using my Windows PC, I can use a free program such as Audacity. Students often will be using Chromebooks, so we need some web-based options. 

We are going to take a look at four excellent, free options for recording audio right in your web browser, and then how to add that audio to Google Slides. 

• How do I use Google Classroom?
• Google Classroom review
• Chromebooks in education: Everything you need to know

1. ChromeMP3 Recorder from HablaCloud

The first tool we are going to look at is by far the simplest of the bunch: The "ChromeMP3 Recorder" web app from HablaCloud. This tool however is a web app, not a website, which means it only runs on Chromebooks, not other computers such as PCs or Macs. 

If you are on a Chromebook though, this is a fantastically easy tool to use. Here's how it works: 

• First, install the "ChromeMP3 Recorder" web app. You can get the Chrome Web Store link on the site at HablaCloud.
• Once the web app has been installed, you can open it from the Chromebook app launcher when needed.
• When the app opens, simply click the red "Record" button to start recording.
  You can click the "Pause" button if needed during recording.
• When done, click the "Stop" button.
• The app will now ask you where you want to save the MP3 file in your Google Drive. You can also name the file at this point to make it easier to find later. 

That's it! This tool doesn't offer any other editing options. Just a simple way for anyone to record and save audio on a Chromebook.

2. Online Voice Recorder 

If you want another tool that is just about as simple but runs on Chromebooks, PCs, and Macs, then you can use the "Online Voice Recorder" website. 

If I am not on a Chromebook, this tool is is usually my "go to" for anytime I need to record some quick audio on the web. Here's how it works: 

• Go to the site at OnlineVoiceRecorder.
• Click the mic button to start recording.
• Note: You will need to give it permission to use your microphone the first time you use the site.
• Click the "Stop" button when done.
• You will now get a screen where you can preview your voice recording.
  If needed, you can trim the start and end of the audio to remove any extra dead space.
• When done, click "Save."
• The MP3 file will be downloaded to your device! 

Note: If using a Chromebook, you can have the file save directly to your Google Drive by changing the "Downloads" option in your Chromebook settings. 

3. Beautiful Audio Editor

The next tool for recording audio online is the "Beautiful Audio Editor". This tool is reasonably easy to use as well, but offers extra editing features. If you just need to record some simple audio, this might be more options than you need but would be helpful if you plan to do some editing to the recording afterward. Here's how it works: 

• Launch the tool at Beautiful Audio Editor.
• Click the "Record" button at the bottom of the screen to start recording.
  Note: You will need to give it permission to use your microphone the first time you use the site.
• Click the "Stop" button when done.
• Your recorded track will now be added to the editor.
• You can drag the play head back to the start and press the play button to preview your recording.
• If you need to trim out any of the audio, you will need to use the "Split Section" and "Remove Section" buttons in the top toolbar.
• When you are happy with the audio, you can click the "Download as MP3" button to generate a link to save the file to your device. 

Note: If using a Chromebook, you can have the file save directly to your Google Drive by changing the "Downloads" option in your Chromebook settings. 

Editing for this tool includes the option to change the audio speed, combine multiple tracks, fade the volume in and out, and more. You can get detailed directions by clicking the "Help" menu option. 

4. TwistedWave 

If you need even more fancy editing tools, another audio recording option is "TwistedWave". The free version of this tool allows you to record up to 5 minutes at a time. Here's how it works: 

• Go to the website at TwistedWave.
• Click "New document" to create a new file.
• Click the red "Record" button to start recording.
• Note: You will need to give it permission to use your microphone the first time you use the site.
• Click the "Stop" button when done.
• Your recorded track will now be added to the editor.
• You can click at the start of your clip and press the "Play" button to preview your recording.
• If you need to trim any of the audio, you can click and drag with your mouse to select the portion you want to get rid of, and then press the "Delete" button.
  When you are happy with the audio, you can download it my clicking "File" then "Download."
• Better yet, to save it directly to your Google Drive you can click "File" then "Save to Google Drive." TwistedWave will ask you to log in with your Google account and give permission. 

This tool provides other features in addition to simple editing. In the "Effects" menu you will find tools to increase or decrease the volume, fade in and out, add silence, reverse the audio, change the pitch and speed, and more. 

Adding Audio to Google Slides 

Now that you have recorded your audio with one of the tools described above, you can add that audio to Google Slides. To do this, two things must be true for the recordings: 

1. The audio files must be in your Google Drive, so if you saved somewhere else, such as the "Downloads" folder on your computer, you will need to upload the files to your Drive. For easy access, and to help with the next step, you should put all of the files in a folder in Drive.   
2. Next, the audio files need to be shared so anyone with a link can play them. This can be done file by file, but it is much easier to simply change the sharing permissions for the entire folder that contains the recordings.

With those steps completed, you can add audio from your Google Drive to Google Slides as follows: 

• With your Google slideshow open, click "Insert" in the top menu bar.
• Choose "Audio" from the drop-down menu.
• This will open up the "Insert audio" screen, where you can browse for or search for the audio files saved in your Google Drive.
• Choose the file you want and then click "Select" to insert it into your slide.

After the audio file has been added to your slide, you can edit several options for it including volume, autoplay, and loop. Here's how:

• Click on the audio file icon to select it.
• Then click the "Format options" button in the top toolbar.
• Finally click "Audio playback" in the side panel that opens.
• Here you can adjust settings such as:
• Start playing "On click" or "Automatically"
• Set the "Volume level"
• "Loop audio" if you want it to keep playing after it ends
• And "Stop on slide change" if you want the audio to end (or continue) when the user moves to the next slide.

Summer is an opportunity for students to catch up or supplement their remote learning, or even pursue additional opportunities. These summer online learning programs also fill a gap that sometimes occurs over the summer months, and best of all, can be done at the comfort of home. 

15 Online Summer Learning Opportunities 

• BoomWriter Haunt - A summer writing club that relies on an interactive story-writing process to create entertaining collaborative stories. 
• Brain Chase - A five-week program for grades 2 to 8 featuring a treasure-hunt adventure that  includes work in math, reading, writing, and more, through watching animated episodes and solving education-based problems. 
• Coding With Kids - A live interactive summer camp program that teaches kids of all ages how to code using Scratch, Minecraft, and Python, among other tools.
• CodeWizardsHQ - Teacher-led instruction over a three-week course focused on coding and related activities.  
• Connected Camps - Learn STEM-based skills such as coding, problem-solving, and collaboration through activities such as esports, game design, and Minecraft. 
• Connections Learning - A collection of technology-related online courses from Pearson for math, reading, ELA, science, and social studies for grades K-8. 
• Edgenuity - A summer learning program for students K-12 that can be tailored for a district’s needs, including course expansion, credit recovery, intervention, and test readiness. 
• Fueleducation - Hundreds of classes in dozens of subjects for grades 6-12, including Advanced Placement and CTE electives such as veterinary science, fashion and interior design, game design, sports and entertainment marketing, and culinary arts. 
• GoNoodle (Camp GoNoodle) - A fun and free online program that offers learning through play and other movement or mindfulness activities. 
• ID Tech - An online STEM-focused program that teaches skills such as coding, game development, and robotics. 
• K5 Learning - An interactive reading and math program for grades K-5 that also provides real-time results, feedback, and detailed reports. 
• K12 - A robust online summer school program with dozens of core electives (history, science, literature, etc.) for students grades 6-12. 
• Outschool - More than 15,000 video classes led by qualified teachers on subjects ranging from core subjects to life skills, health and wellness, music, and international languages. 
• Time4Learning - A fun online program for grades PreK-8th in core subjects with a detailed curriculum in each area. 
• Treca - An eight-week course for grades 9-12 in a range of online courses such as math, science, and social studies. 

David Kapuler is an educational consultant with more than 10 years of experience working in the K-12 environment. For more information about his work, contact him at dkapuler@gmail.com and read his blog at cyber-kap.blogspot.com.

Rushing to create online curriculum and activities? That content must be made accessible. If you are taking screenshots or pictures of documents that you share or post online, it's probably not accessible. At this point, you should assume that the documents you create will end up on the device of a person with a disability.

There's a lot of support to ensure they access it!

In NYC, The Office of Digital Inclusion & The Mayor’s Office of People with Disabilities are partnering to support schools with this work.

Here are some classes and resources for educators:

• Encourage staff to attend an upcoming online session
  *Inclusive classroom, ELLs, creating inclusive content and more!
  *NYC DOE staff can take Siteimprove Academy Digital Accessibility classes and receive a free license, worth $250
• Visit the Digital Accessibility page
• Read the guide on making accessible documents from the Mayor’s Office of People with Disabilities
• Read the guide on creating accessible slide decks from the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities
• Join our Digital Inclusion Community (for NYC staff)

Innovative educators understand the importance of including all learners and their families in the content we create—and they help others do the same.

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.  

During the first virtual Google Educator Meetup, I hosted a session called: One Great Thing. In it, educators shared one great thing that has happened during this time of remote teaching and learning. 

Some great things resulting from remote learning

Accelerated Technology Adoption

• We accomplished what we set out to do in our five year tech plan in one year. I couldn't be more thrilled to write a new plan.
• My goal was 100% Google Classroom adoption and remote learning made it happen.
• Teachers hungry to learn technology and rising to the challenge. They are making mistakes and learning from them. They are are adding new tools to their teaching craft.
• Witnessing the almost overnight transformation of teachers who thought they could never participate in digital spaces is deeply fulfilling.

Silos broken down / Connections made

• We’re isolated by grade band in school. With remote learning I see staff across the school more often.
• I work in an office where we generally are heads down and work within our team. In all my years I've never worked across offices, divisions, and departments nor met so many new people as I have during remote learning.
• This was my first year in my school. I’ve actually gotten to meet more people in my building than ever before.
• Virtual office hours have been a great way to make more frequent connections with students. It's easier to have private one-on-one conversations and support than in the classroom.

Innovative work with students

• Attack Chess Club- Chess meeting once a week with instruction and having all members join a site LICHESS.Org so they can play against one another online.
• My students made each other greetings in scratch. It was super cool that they came up with a lot on their own with very little instruction.
• We made a movie of photos of staff at home with their kids, dogs etc and signs saying We Miss You etc. This was posted it in every classroom. Next week we are going to compile one of all the student’s doing their work at home that have been uploaded to Classroom.

Tech companies are accelerating updates

Updates in Google Meets:

• Official Google Announcement 
• Grid view
• Chrome Unboxed Blog

Updates in MS Teams

• End meeting for all
• Custom video background
• Attendance report
• Raised hand
• Grid view

Clemencia Acevedo

Peter Kornicker

Sean Arnold

Steven J. Scheiner

Jackie Patanio

Joseph Sanfilippo

Tricia Clarke

Anthony Casanovas

Apologies for anyone I missed. Teams me and I'll be happy to add you.

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.  

Microsoft Teams has established itself as a leading business alternative for Slack, but when it comes to working with students, it still needed some work. 

Until now.

Teams has several new upgrades that have (or soon will) roll out to make Teams a great option for digital education and video conferencing.  

Here's what you can expect:

Rolled out in April:

• End meeting for all participants 
• Custom video background 
• Attendance reports for meetings
• Raise hand 
• 3x3 video support 
• Only Educators can start the meeting. Students can't join meeting before the educator 

Rolled out in May:

• IT policy for default role of attendee (student)
• Students can chat ONLY in the Meeting – (not before or after)

Want to know more? 

Visit Microsoft Teams meetings for the classroom – what to use now, and what is coming soon.

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

In these unprecedented times, it is important for staff to be intentional about staying connected and supporting the social-emotional needs of their staff.

To follow are ideas that have worked well for my colleagues and I.

Personal touch

At least once a month, send a personal note to those who report to you checking on how they are doing. Follow up with a video chat for those that ask for it. This goes a long way in letting staff know you care about them.

Daily check ins

Start days with a daily check in. See how staff is doing/holding up. Then discuss any needs staff have and come up with ways to support their work.

Intentional shout outs 

Supervisors can shout out the great work of staff. Do your best to recognize each staff member (or team) at least once across the week. They can also invite staff to shout out colleagues.

Video on!

People want to connect and see one another. Turn the video on as you enter and whenever you are speaking. Turn it back on as you sign off. Additional video conference tips.

Get personal 

It's okay to set aside some time to share and connect on a human level. Anything interesting this week? How did everyone start their day? What's your exercise routine look like. Connection is key.

Have fun

Let's face it. Working (and doing everything) from home is hard. Add some fun into meetings as appropriate with filters and backgrounds. We all need just a little more opportunities to laugh.

Project list

It's important to know what colleagues are working on all the time and especially when working remotely. We use something called an action tracker that indicates who is working on what project and what the status is. This is a great way to keep folks in the loop.

Your turn

What are you doing to stay connected in a time of working remotely?

cross posted at The Innovative Educator

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

For schools that are doing remote learning this Spring Break there are lots of options for teachers to find materials, resources, and activities that will delight your students and that families will love. Each will be available at no cost during school closures.  

Thrively

Thrively gives every child a strength-based assessment that uncovers the student’s talents, interests, and abilities.  It also shows them via short videos the kind of lives and careers others have pursued who have similar strengths. Next, Thrively shows them how to pursue their interests via face-to-face and online activities, videos, experiences, and apps to inspire and challenge students- all personalized to their unique strengths. Finally, Thrively provides a digital portfolio for students to capture and share their accomplishments.  

Genius Matters

Consider "Genius Matters: A Framework for Epic Transformation." This is an interactive guide by Angela Maiers that brings teachers and their students on a journey via 20 lessons which you can do daily, biweekly, weekly or whatever works best for your student’s learning environment. 

Lessons address topics such as how to find your genius, how to connect with others to help you build your genius, how to collaborate effectively, and how to share your genius with the world.   

Spring Break is the perfect time to help students find their genius.  

Wide Open School

Common Sense created a powerful resource for teachers, students, and families called Wide Open School.  It helps make learning from home an experience that inspires kids, supports teachers, relieves families, and restores community.

More than 25 organizations came together to support this effort and more are joining. Wide Open School is a free collection of the best online learning experiences for kids curated by the editors at Common Sense.

PBS / WNET

Digital media resources from WNET/PBS can be used to enhance remote learning such as:

• PBS Kids has apps and resources designed for younger learners, preK-2.
• PBS LearningMedia quick-start guide, to introduce you to the features of the site and help you find the right resources for your students.
• Mission US, a free online gaming series that immerses students in grades 5-8 in US History content.
• For students without consistent access to the Internet and devices, WNET can also provide meaningful learning experiences through our broadcast channels (Thirteen, WLIW, and NJTV), with tips to help families make TV time learning time.

EverFi

EverFi empowers educators to bring real-world learning into the classroom and equip students with the skills they need for success–now and in the future. Their interactive, standards-based curricula feature lessons and built-in reporting.

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal. 

If you are like us, your school is in virtual learning and teaching mode. If your colleagues are asking for ideas or you are looking for ways to stay in touch we offer the following:

 Video Communication: Zoom         

We’ve participated in school, district and family video conferencing using Zoom.  It’s free to sign up. Once you sign up, schedule a meeting, invite your students, friends or family.  Many school systems have a contract with a provider such as Zoom, Skype, GoToMeeting or WebX. Check with the tech person at your school for free access, and follow the rules set by your district or state. 

Digital Baseball Cards 

Trading Card Creator is an alternative way for students to demonstrate their knowledge and skill when writing about anything. It even gives a place for sources. Students can create trading cards about artists, coders, scientists, writers or their favorite superhero.    

Earth Day 

• The Official Earth Day website has articles and information about this year’s celebration. 50 years! 
• The Old Farmer's Almanac reveals how the date for Earth Day was picked and lots of other fun stuff. 
• Try some of these Earth Day activities. 
• Pinterest has a good collection of indoor and outdoor Earth Day STEM  activities for kids.

82nd International Technology & Engineering Educators Association (ITEEA) Annual Conference     

• Moon houses of the Future competition
• How students can build their own laptops with a Kano kit  and 3-D printer with a Jellybox kit.  
• More on the ITEEA website, including resources for teaching at home

cross posted at collaborationsdigitalandotherwise.weebly.com

Deborah Marshall is the Department Chair of Career & Technical Education and Lisa McKnight Ward is the librarian at Granby High School in Norfolk, Virginia. Both are Nationally Board Certified, former Teachers of the Year, who have taught multiple subjects including AP and IB courses. They have over a decade of experience collaborating on technology-based learning. Read more at collaborationsdigitalandotherwise.weebly.com/

Some districts are requiring teachers to give students work over their Spring Break.

Bummer! 

But it doesn't have to be. 

Rather than carrying on with traditional schooling, take this time to find out each child's strengths using Thrively. 

What is Thrively?

Thrively gives every child a strength-based assessment that uncovers the student’s talents, interests, and abilities.  It also shows them via short videos the kind of lives and careers others have pursued who have similar strengths. Next, Thrively shows them how to pursue their interests via face-to-face and online activities, videos, experiences, and apps to inspire and challenge students- all personalized to their unique strengths. Finally, Thrively provides a digital portfolio for students to capture and share their accomplishments.  

This video provides an overview of Thrively.

There is finally a free tool that enables us to know and grow every child’s genius. Not only that, you can help students learn in ways that are tied to their interests and strengths.

Another plus for teachers is that you can group together students who share strengths and learning styles to work collaboratively on projects of interest.  

Sound interesting? You, your child, or students can get started by visiting Thrively.com and joining, then take your free strength assessment.  

You can see mine here. Here is a snippet.

Here is what a teacher sees at a glance for each student.

Check out Thrively now. Do your profile. Create your class. Have a look around. If you have contact information for your student’s families, reach out and have them start on their profile. You’ll know a lot about your students before the year starts. If you don’t, Thrively is the tool you should be using to start your year and drive your planning.  

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

The most important thing to know about remote learning is that it is not simply doing school at home. It's different. Throw the bell schedule out!

Instead:

Teacher

• Posts assignments with support materials like instructions and videos.
• Provides optional times throughout the day for students to come together to chat, get support, discuss, and answer questions.
• Sets times for students, pairs, or groups, to schedule appointments. 
• When students submit work, the teacher is commenting on that work, giving feedback, and perhaps chatting via voice, video, or text with the student. 

Students 

• Follow a schedule that works best for the family. 
• Submit work as their schedule allows within a recommended time frame.
• Know how to request both synchronous and asynchronous help from their teacher.

Families 

• Make schedules for their day
• Know how to make appointments to connect and conference with their teacher. 

Not only will the student's schedule be different, so will the teachers. The school day no longer exists. Learning, feedback, and assessment are more fluid and aligned to the natural schedules of teacher, student, and family. If you're new to this, it will take a bit of time to get used to. The "Realistic Solution to Structure" from seasoned homeschooler, Sue Wolf Patterson, may help.

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

Presenting through online platforms requires unique skills. Presenters need to be able to multitask and know how to troubleshoot in the moment. Below are some best practices my colleagues (ClayCodes, LauraOgando7, PatriciaPaddock)  and I collected which are helpful to keep in mind while presenting remotely. 

Roles

Roles can be combined depending on the person’s skills. If a live audience is present, it’s recommended to have the presenter support those in physical attendance and a facilitator support those online. 

If the presentation is strictly online it’s recommended to have a remote monitor to support questions but the presenter can also build in breaks to answer any questions that may have come up. 

For teachers, think about which students might be good in each role.

Remote participant monitor

• Greets people who enter remotely
• Answers questions
• Provides resources

Tech Support

• Helps people access the agendas and slides
• Helps open application or download extensions
• Helps participants if they’re having tech issues
• Mutes participants
• Pins participants

Facilitator

• Presenting
• Engaging with the audience
• Responsive to questions and feedback

Best Practices

• Start with going over housekeeping 
• Bring the energy!
• Be sure to pause slightly longer than normal for any questions that expect a response.
• People may be struggling with technology and need time to respond.
• Create a check off document of everything needing to be done prior to presenting.
• A checkoff document is a great reference point and inevitably the times it’s not used will be the times something goes wrong.

Lessons Learned

• Set up and test all the tech as soon as you access equipment
• Test sound, microphone and all other components
  Consider having another device that can be used to pick up audio if the main device doesn’t have a working microphone.
• Give yourself enough time to tinker and troubleshoot (at least 45 minutes)

Tech Tools

Microsoft Teams
Directions for set up:

• Schedule the event through teams.
• At the time of the event join from your calendar. 
• Use the present screen button to present your screen or a document. 

Extensions
Prior to session
     

• Check that extensions to be used are installed.
• Log in to any extensions if they require it. 
• Test the extension use as it would be done during a training. 

Tech Specs

Speak close to the mic  

• A headset would be helpful if you want to move around 

Mute all participants so their sound doesn’t interfere with the presentation.

• Remind participants to enter with mics muted. 
• Provide them with protocols for speaking i.e. indicate in the chat you'd like to speak.
• Participants can control their own mic and verbally participate in the session one at a time.

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

As many educators, students and their families are teaching and learning remotely, knowing where to turn for safe online research is essential. Here, in alphabetical order, are some safe search engines to start with.

Top 20 Safe Search Engines

Choosito - A National Science Foundation-funded search engine and digital library for students.

Classhook - Find educational videos from TV shows and movies that can be used for lessons on a wide range of topics.

Cybersleuth Kids - Great for finding student-friendly games, activities and clip art related to reading, math and more.

DinoSearch - A kid-friendly search engine that employs three filters to block inappropriate search results.

DOGOnews - Relying on a curated and COPPA-compliant database, DOGOnews offers reading material and assignments for grades K-8 that can then be integrated into Google Classroom, in addition to assessment and language/speech tools.

Famhoo - A family-friendly search engine that filters all content.

Google (safe search) - Google offers a safe search setting that can be set as the default for Firefox browsers.

The History Engine - A collection of thousands of historical “episodes” researched, written, and published by college students, who learn history in the process through doing the work of a historian.

Kiddle - A visual search engine specifically designed for kids.

Kidtopia - A COPPA/CIPA compliant search engine for students designed by school librarians.

Kid Rex - Designed around Google’s safe search with fun graphics, Kid Rex emphasizes kid-related web pages.

Lesson Planet - Ideal for teachers and parents searching for lessons and other education resources that can be shared with students.

Lumos Edsearch - Provides filtered educational resources, videos, apps, and more that have been vetted by teachers.

Nettrekker - A paid site for searching the web designed for both students and teachers.

Photos for Class - Creative Common-licensed images for the classroom that are cited appropriately.

Refseek - An academic search engine that indexes through five billions documents, including journals, encyclopedias, websites, and books.

Springo Kids - A fun visual search engine for kids in which results are divided into for over and under 8 years old, and are given in thumbnails.

Sweet Search - A group of more than 50 education experts (including librarians, researchers and teachers) evaluate content for this search engine.

Symbolab - A scientific search engine geared toward providing solutions for math and science problems.

Top Marks - Developed in the UK by teachers who have vetted all the content and results on this site, which cover a wide range of subjects.

A version of this article was cross posted at cyber-kap.blogspot.com

David Kapuler is an educational consultant with more than 10 years of experience working in the K-12 environment. For more information about his work, contact him at dkapuler@gmail.com and read his blog at cyber-kap.blogspot.com.

Teachers everywhere are preparing for or engaging in remote learning. Google Classroom has become the go-to place to launch this work. Whether teaching remotely or face-to-face, innovative educators know that G-Classroom saves you time, keeps you organized and helps you communicate with your students. 

If you're new to Google Classroom, no worries. They've put together this great resource to help you get started today. 

The Get Started Kit includes:

The Basics

Lots of video tutorials to get you started.

Teachers Lounge

Tips and tricks from teachers.

Extra help

• Help center
  In-depth knowledge and FAQs.
• Help forum
  Get answers to your questions from experts.
• Teacher center
  Detailed professional development in simple to understand steps.

Get Started

Simply visit Google Classroom and get started now. 

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

Like teachers all around the globe I am in the process of transforming my face-to-face classroom instruction into one that is delivered 100% virtually from my living room.  Below is the daily schedule that my school, Sonoma Academy, is transitioning to. 

Like teachers all around the globe I am in the process of transforming my face-to-face classroom instruction into one that is delivered 100% virtually from my living room.  Below is the daily schedule that my school, Sonoma Academy, is transitioning to. 

Currently I teach 3 courses that all pose their own unique challenges in preparing for this transition: 10th grade Honors Chemistry (CD Period), 10-12th grade Biochemistry (EF Period), and 10th-12th grade Engineering for Social Good (AB Period).  

The Pedagogy in each course ranges from an Inquiry Learning approach in Honors Chemistry that I have been developing for the past 20 years, to Biochemistry and Engineering for Social Good, two new elective courses that I developed and was teaching for the very first time. 

Biochemistry following a similar Inquiry Learning approach, while Engineering for Social Good is a heavily Project-Based. Transitioning each course to an online version that is MEANINGFUL, EFFECTIVE, and most importantly: LEVERAGES THE ONLINE LEARNING MEDIUM is proving to be a very daunting task. 

Our online learning program launches 10 days from now. My plan is to write a short blog post each day, sharing lessons learned, resources acquired, frustrations, modifications, reflections, tool, ideas, etc. etc., as I embark on this scary and vulnerable time with all of you. 

cross posted at www.cyclesoflearning.com

Ramsey Musallam teaches science and robotics at Sonoma Academy in Santa Rosa, California, with the aim of fostering inquiry-based learning environments fueled by student curiosity. He presents widely on sparking student curiosity and teaching with technology. Musallam is a Google Certified Teacher, a YouTube Star Teacher, and a Leading Edge Certified Teacher. Watch his TED talk here and read his blog at www.cyclesoflearning.com

Schools across the globe are moving to remote learning during these unprecedented times in our world's history. Innovative educators are jumping on board, embracing the challenge, and even enthusiastic about discovering some new and better ways of supporting learners.

This is the best possible outcome in trying times. However, more and more teachers are sharing that as they are trying to move forward, their supervisors have taken this as a cue to monitor and micromanage. This makes for a very nerve-racking and stressful situation for teachers who are already overburdened.  

Below is a list of what educators don't want supervisors to do as they transition into a new way of supporting learners. 

Remote Learning "Don't" List for Supervisors

• Don't ask to be added to everything
  Teachers don't want you watching and commenting on their every move while their learning something new.
• Don't do their work
  There are environments where supervisors can see what teachers are doing with students. In these cases, supervisors should not chime in, in the space of teacher and student and start doing the teacher's job. It's just awkward and  undermines the teachers work and authority.
• Don't focus on monitoring
  Many teachers share their supervisor's biggest concern is monitoring them and that is uncomfortable. The role of the supervisor in these times is to be as supportive as possible.
• Don't mandate tools, practices, and processes
  Suggest, support, and offer, but don't mandate how a teacher does their job. This is a time for learning and innovation. There may be tools that they feel will help them better support learners. Let them use those tools as they move into a new way of teaching.
• Don't treat remote learning like face-to-face learning
  Some supervisors are expecting staff to be on the same exact attendance and bell schedule. No! Just, no. 

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

Launching remote learning? Get a weeks worth of student-facing home learning resources aligned to the NYC schools' remote learning curriculum. It's also available in Google Classroom.

More coming...next week. Visit the Teaching Matters Site to download the curriculum for your grade and subject.

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

In self-paced learning, students approach lessons and content at their own speed. This approach is useful in supporting different learning styles, and can potentially help students better retain information. 

With the increased implementation of elearning and remote teaching, self-paced learning is becoming more and more prevalent.

To help students and educators, this alphabetical list offers some useful online resources that can be used for self-paced learning.

Top 15 Tools for Self-Paced Learning

Brain Pop and Brain Pop Jr. - Students can watch animated videos in numerous subjects and then follow up with brief assessments and quizzes.

Education Galaxy - A game-based learning platform for grades K-6 that covers a variety of topics. Also focuses on preparing students for state assessments.

Gimkit - A “game show for the classroom” in which students can collaborate and create quizzes that can then be taken from their own devices.

GrammarFlip - Students can improve their grammar and writing by watching educational videos and then completing interactive exercises.

Kialo Edu - A platform for educators to gauge student understanding and differentiate instruction through collaborative discussions. Helps to build critical thinking and reasoning skills.

Knoword - A vocabulary-building tool with a teacher portal through which educators can create their own topic-themed word packs and track student progress.

Makerdemy - Designed to help students boost their programming and coding skills at their own pace and in a variety of languages (i.e. Raspberry Pi, Google Assistant, etc.).

Mathigon - An innovative interactive math textbook that serves as a personal tutor and provides real-time feedback.

Milestone Math - An iOS app that automatically adapts to a student’s knowledge level and uses self-paced learning to help students bolster their math skills.

Outwhiz - Offers self-paced exercises focusing on math and English for grades K-8. Outwhiz also offers analytics tools to track progress.

PBS Learning Media - Videos, interactive activities, lessons and more aligned to state standards and covering a wide range of subjects.

Splash Math - A K-5 personalized learning math curriculum with interactive games and rewards.

UMU - A site and mobile app (iOS/Android) that can be used to create self-paced lessons in any subject.

VocApp - A free mobile app that employs digital flashcards to help students learn at their own pace and differentiate instruction.

Vocab Victor - Students can boost their vocabulary skills at their own pace with this free mobile app, which assesses and adapts to their vocabulary level in real-time.

A version of this article was cross posted at cyber-kap.blogspot.com

David Kapuler is an educational consultant with more than 10 years of experience working in the K-12 environment. For more information about his work, contact him at dkapuler@gmail.com and read his blog at cyber-kap.blogspot.com.

With the COVID-19 situation, many schools around the world are out of session, with students learning from home and educators teaching remotely. There are so many wonderful resources being shared for schools to use during this time.

As much as possible it would be wonderful to maintain as much continuity as we can with our students and their learning. One great way to do this is for teachers to record themselves teaching and share those videos with their students.

There are many excellent tools for making instructional videos, but one good example is Screencastify. This is a free Chrome web extension that records your screen, microphone, and/or webcam, saves the video to your Google Drive, and makes it easy to share the recording with others. I have shared about this tool many times on this blog, but thought it would be helpful to make a video specifically for the COVID-19 situation. Since we are all so overwhelmed at the moment, I made the video as short as I could, just about 12 minutes long, so educators can learn everything they need as quickly as possible.

See below for the video, as well as some additional resources and information about Screencastify. And as always, please feel free to share with others who may benefit!

Resources

NOTE: Some videos are taking longer than normal to process on Google Drive. Screencastify has a blog post covering the details and explaining some workarounds here: "My Video is not Processing on Google Drive"

Helpful Links:

• Install Screencastify - Chrome Web Store link
• 7 Super Screencasting Activities for School - Blog post link
• A Beginner's Guide to Screencastify for Educators - Website link

cross posted at www.controlaltachieve.com

Eric Curts is an education trainer and consultant with over 20 years' experience throughout the U.S. He is an authorized Google Education Trainer and a Google Certified Innovator. Read his blog at www.controlaltachieve.com and follow him on Google+ and @ericcurts on Twitter.

Television can provide a great way for everyone to learn. It is especially useful as a learning tool, when using laptops may not be the best option. 

This may be the case for a few reasons, such as:  

• A student has a disability that makes using a laptop difficult
• A student may not have access to a laptop
• A student may not have WiFi 

If you are planning to incorporate television viewing into your child's learning experiences WNET and PBS have put some tips together.

Elementary Students

• Read reviews to ensure you are choosing the right shows.
• Have questions for you child to consider such as:
  Do you think what happened in the show is something that might happen in your life or the life of someone you know? Why?
  How would you have handled what happened in the show?
• Enhance listening skills by asking your child questions about what they're watching
• Make connections to what your child is watching to books, articles, and research
• Use television characters in learning activities
• Make a family screen time plan

Learn more by visiting Tips for Enhancing TV Learning Experiences

Secondary Students

Engaging in discussion or related activities before, during, and/or after the show can help you remember what you've learned. WNET has discussion questions and activities for any show you watch on PBS - no internet needed! - to take what you just watched to the next level. 

There are lots of activities you can do while watching a program such as taking the role of reporter or journalist, reenacting what you saw, and thinking like a producer.

Learn more by visiting The WNET TV Guide to Making Screen Time Learning Time.

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

Regardless of the likelihood that schools are shut down on a local, state, or national level thanks to the coronavirus there are many great reasons every teacher should become familiar with distance learning best practices. Beyond the ability to one day abolish snow days or not lose instructional time due to other reasons schools may close, it turns out the tools and methods you would use to run a distance learning class are likely even more beneficial to students when everyone is using distance learning techniques while in the classroom together.

Blended Learning is when students learn at least partially online while the teacher is in the room with them. I’ve been a long time proponent of blended learning. Blended learning allows the teacher to take on more of a support role while empowering students through self-paced, self-directed learning made possible through technology.

Whether you’re getting ready for distance learning because of an impending school shut down or you’re interested in bringing blended learning to your classroom, you’ll need to consider some important practices to get this type of learning to work well. I plan on jumping into these bigger questions like the best blended learning models, how to help students who fall behind or speed ahead, how to address students with special needs or lack of access, and more in future posts. But I wanted to write something now for teachers who may need to come up with a few weeks of distance learning lessons quickly. What types of lessons can students do online, from home? It’s similar to what they can do in the classroom, it turns out, only better.

1. Blogging / Podcasting

Whether students watch, read, or listen to something you post in a learning management system like Google Classroom or Schoology, having them share their thoughts with you is a common online assignment. Instead of just writing a response or essay in Docs, consider having students create a blog on new Google Sites, or make a podcast on Soundtrap or Twisted Wave.

2. Socratic Seminar / Debates / Discussions

Responding to others thoughts and feeling as an activity in an online class has been around forever. Most remember it from college: the teacher poses a question, prompt, or topic for debate that students must respond to. After posting their response, learners must also respond to a specified number of other students’ responses. Not very exciting, but it works. Try making things more engaging by using Flipgrid so students can respond via video to each other.

3. Quizzes / Tests

Whether for practice or the gradebook, assessing student learning with a traditional style quiz or test is still possible online. Google Forms has added ‘quiz’ features which allow you to create an assessment that is more robust than a paper test or quiz. You can insert pictures and videos, set answer validation, and even have the assessment automatically grade and ‘hand back’ student scores. Students can answer a variety of questions including the ability to turn in files or links as answers. Check out all the features here.

4. Worksheets

No one likes worksheets, but if you’re in a pinch most worksheets can be uploaded to Google Classroom. The thing is, having students print the worksheet and upload it when it is done is a bit much. Know these helpful tips if you don’t already have your worksheets made in your Google Drive.

If you upload a PDF to Google Drive, right click on it, and select Open as Google Doc. Drive will automatically convert a PDF into an editable Google Doc that you can then fix and post for students.

There are apps like Office Lens and Evernote Scannable that allow you to take pictures of your worksheets and convert them into a PDF that can then be edited in Drive with the above method.

In a pinch, you can take a picture of your worksheet with your camera and upload the picture to Drive. If the picture is clear enough, you can open it as a Doc and Drive will convert the text in the picture into something you can edit.

5. Show me what you learned

One of my go to blended learning activities has always been show me what you learned. Show me what you learned is my way of challenging students to come up with their own creative, engaging way to do just that: show me what they learned during a lesson or unit. It can be a song or rap, a how to video, a book trailer, an infographic, an animation. Anything school appropriate. Why not let students decide their distance learning activites? Ask them to turn in something that shows what they learned for your lesson or unit!

Distance and blended learning can and should be so much more than these five activities. The use of online learning tools especially when supported by the teacher while learners are in the classroom, seems to lead to better learning outcomes than more traditional classroom. But if you’re in a pinch, and those two weeks worth of distance learning lessons plans are due in a couple days, keep these activities in mind. Promise me, though, you’ll come back and learn more about blended learning when you get back to school.

Looking for more: Check out this great Waklet of distance learning resources my friend Steve Isaacs is crowdsourcing online.

Until Next Time,

GLHF and wash your hands!

cross-posted at Teched Up Teacher

Chris Aviles presents on education topics including gamification, technology integration, BYOD, blended learning, and the flipped classroom. Read more at Teched Up Teacher.

In NYC, all parent-teacher conferences are now virtual. Here is the guidance they are giving to staff to help them make this work.

• Microsoft Teams using Bookings
• Google Guidance
• Using Microsoft Translator

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

Staying connected to families is always a good idea.  It becomes even more important in times of school closures. If possible, it is best to have a system already in place for family communication. Common Sense Education provides advice on how best to communicate and what tools to use to do so. 

Best Messaging Apps & Websites

Common Sense shares apps and websites for texting, messaging, and communication that make it easier for teachers to send out assignments, reminders, and progress reports. They're also great to communicate with families about conferences, field trips, and volunteer opportunities. The list helps you find a tool to keep your communication consistent, reach parents on platforms they're already using, and, in some cases, give students the opportunity to lead the conversation by demonstrating their learning in the classroom.

Power Up Parent-Teacher Communication

Effective parent communication is crucial in helping students learn. But, for busy teachers it can be challenging just to keep up. Apps and other digital tools make it easier to keep everyone -- parents and students -- in the loop. Transparency and equity are key to managing any communication between home and school. Check out the parent-teacher communication materials to find a variety of tools and useful tips to help you better engage your parent audience.

Parent - Teacher Conference Tip Sheet

These three tip sheets—for principals, teachers, and parents—can help ensure that parent–teacher conferences achieve their maximum potential by providing guidance that reflects each person’s role and responsibility in promoting productive home–school communication. Designed to be used as a set, the tip sheets combine consistent information with targeted suggestions, so that parents and educators enter into conferences with shared expectations and an increased ability to work together to improve children's educational outcomes.

Translator for Parents Non-Native Speakers

Learn how to have a live, translated parent-teacher conference using the Translator app. Parents can download the app in advance, scan or enter the conversation code when they arrive, and translations appear on their device in real-time. We even provide fully translated letters you can send to parents in their languages to tell them how to participate.

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

Blended learning is a teaching approach that combines both traditional instruction and digital technologies to create lessons. Face-to-face teaching is augmented with online lessons and content.  

These sites provide support, lessons and other resources for educators using a blended learning approach.

Blended Play - Uses gamification to support blended learning, and allows educators to create the questions used in the multiple games available.

Buncee - An easy-to-use platform encourages creativity and sharing by supporting digital storytelling, project-based learning, interactive presentation and more.

Edmodo - A free social learning environment where educators can share class materials, collaborate with students, and keep parents informed. 

EDpuzzle - Allows educators to flip a classroom or lesson by editing a video and adding questions. Ideal for self-paced learning.

• A Better Plan for Fully Reopening Schools This Fall
• Five Quick Distance Learning Activities For Teachers In A Pinch
• Using Blended Learning to Close Achievement Gap

Eduflow - A new learning management system (LMS) that allows educators to create courses and lessons, track student progress, and integrate group discussions.

FlipSnack Edu - Build your own online classroom in which you can add new lessons or upload existing ones, and where students can create and share projects.

GoClass - Uses a web interface and mobile app to create digital lessons, blend learning, and generate detailed reports.

iCivics - A free platform for teaching civics through multiple resources and through various approaches such as game-based learning, project-based learning, and web quests.

Kahoot - An engaging and popular game-based site that provides opportunities for students to take control of their learning and educators to track student development.

Khan Academy - A vast, curated resource for online learning where users learn at their own pace through interactive exercises and videos.

MySimpleShow - A very popular site for creating beautiful looking explainer videos/slideshows, as well as to "flip" or "blend" learning.

Otus - Educators can build device-friendly lessons, manage and track student performance, take attendance and notes, grade, communicate and more.

Parlay - Take classroom engagement to the next level through virtual hand raises, data-driven class discussions, best practices and more.

Umu - Provides a variety of tools for professional development, including quizzes, polls, infographics, live broadcasts, and more.

Other resources:

Blended Learning Tool Kit 

Blended Learning Infographics 

A version of this article was crossposted at cyber-kap.blogspot.com 

David Kapuler is an educational consultant with more than 10 years of experience working in the K-12 environment. For more information about his work, contact him at dkapuler@gmail.com and read his blog at cyber-kap.blogspot.com

Schools being closed is nothing new. There are spring and winter breaks. There are snow days. There is summer vacation. At these times teachers, schools, and districts may decide to give students homework packets with various activities. Parents need to figure out childcare.

These days we have the Corona Virus looming and already being the cause of school closures in various cities, countries, or just at particular schools. In the age of technology, planning for secondary students has become a bit easier as many schools already use platforms like Google Classroom, Schoology, or Microsoft Teams.  Additionally, childcare is not as a big of a concern for older children, but what about elementary school students?

Here are some ways schools can prepare:

Communication

Communication is key.  Once you have a way to stay connected, families can be informed and updated as needed.

ONLINE PLATFORMS

Parents

Facebook is where parents already are and the learning curve for most is non-existent. Set up a private group, using your school's email address. Send the link to join to all your parents. Designate group administrators and moderators. Set the group rules. Start important discussions, such as:

• Help parents connect around childcare needs.
• Give parents tips for home learning
• Provide the latest news

Learn how to use Facebook Live to speak with parents and encourage them to comment on the Livestream.

Students

If you don't have one, set up a community for students in a platform such as Google Classroom, Teams, or Schoology.  Have all students log in during class. Try to ensure parents can help their students log on. Practice having students engage in the platform. If you have very young students, practice with a very simple prompt and have them respond with emojis.  The point is getting them used to the platform. Experiment in class with things like video conferencing.

Phones

There are schools where many families may not have access to devices or Wi-Fi.  Don't forget about the power of the telephone. In some districts, Microsoft Teams is set up so that up to 250 people can be in a call. If you don't have this set up, see if you can arrange that. Free Conference Call is another option.

Make sure that you have as many phone numbers as possible, and have a number set up for families to call as makes sense.  Google Voice might be a good option for this.

Childcare

Have families start thinking about this now. Encourage them to connect with each other. Encourage them to connect with teachers and other school staff who may be able to help. Suggest they think of family members such as grandparents who can come visit and help with childcare needs.

LEARNING

Here are some ideas for keeping the learning going when school is closed.

General

• Breaks: Encourage families to start by thinking about the learning that happens over summer and breaks. 
• Homeschooling groups: Find some local and online homeschooling groups they can join. Find out how they provide learning for students. 
• Library: Go to the library and have your child pick out lots of books.

Online Resources

Common Sense Media:
Not sure what's best for online learning? Common Sense Media has you covered with ratings, reviews, and recommendations for apps, movies, websites, games, and more.  

GoNoodle:
Help your children and yourself stay active and mindful with GoNoodle 

Thrively:
Find the right kids activities, educational games, and apps for your child. Show your kids just what they can do with Thrively. Joining is free. Kids get a strength assessment and then suggested online and face-to-face activities.

A forced school closure whether due to virus, disaster, or other unwanted circumstance will be challenging. However, if districts, schools, parents, and students work together to stay connected and be prepared, there is an opportunity for everyone to learn important lessons and become more connected. 

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several books and her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

It’s been interesting to watch the world react to the COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the “Coronavirus”. In the age of social media and instant notifications on our mobile devices, it’s made this pandemic seem like the worst on record when in fact, it’s not even close. That said, as with any disaster or pandemic, there comes an increased awareness to how schools and districts respond to it. Many schools are on alert, creating plans and awaiting guidance. While others, like this school in Seattle, are shutting down as a precaution.

Last week I posted the question of how schools prepared for a long-term closure using Facebook, Twitter, and group texts as ways to crowd-source responses.  Those responses varied from “packets, we’ll just give them lots of packets” to “we’ll use Google Classroom to hand out assignments.”  Neither of these responses are inherently good or bad, but it does open the door to a slew of questions schools and districts need to be asking themselves when it comes to continuing the learning even when the building is closed to students.

This post is a cumulation of those responses crowd-sourced from school administrators across the globe. As every district is different, it’s impossible to come up with a one-size-fits-all approach to long-term closure. However, I do hope these questions can help guide you as you see what kind of plan you have in place should the unfortunate happen. Being from Texas, I know that weather can cause long-term closure as well (see Hurricane Harvey). For the purposes of the following questions, I’m going to assume that it’s a pandemic and that it’s affecting the entire community and surrounding districts. I will also post some ideas and solutions that were shared with me in the hopes of sparking an idea for your school or community.

1. How will you deliver learning to your students?

I purposefully put “learning” instead of “content” as too often times we default to what we know. Learning online looks a lot different than learning in a physical classroom. Some mentioned using LMS platforms like Schoology or Google Classroom to deliver the learning to their students but this assumes that A) they have devices and B) they have internet access (see next question). Also, most of the responses pertained to students in grades 6 and up. Some had some measures for 3-5 students while most had no plans for online learning when it came to K-2 students.

Ideas/Solutions: As mentioned, using LMS platforms seemed to be the most common response to this question, with Google Classroom being mentioned the most. Sometimes these can be online assignments, digital worksheets, or journal prompts. Some mentioned using live chats, YouTube, and Google Hangouts as a way to supplement the learning, including having “office hours” where teachers take 10-15 minutes to check in virtually with each of their students. A couple of districts mentioned their teachers creating lessons on Nearpod and using the “student-paced” option to send work home as it tracks their answers and allows them to upload work. Andrew Wallace from South Portland Maine Schools shared another creative solution. In his district, they send home a “one page cheat sheet” with passwords and usernames for online resources like Newsela, Tumble Books, Overdrive, and BrainPop (which already has a new lesson on the CoronaVirus – see below) In Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, Kyle Berger deploys a Classlink portal for all teachers, parents and students to access resources. Of course, this all still assumes that all kids have devices and internet at home which leads me to my second question.

2. How many of your students DO NOT have online access at home and how do you deliver learning to them?

This is a question many schools may already know the answer to. Online survey tools like Survey Monkey and Bright Bytes can help collect this data (ironically, you have to be online to take the survey) or you could collect this information during school registration. Regardless of how you collect it, you’ll likely have a percentage of students without access that you’ll have to plan for.

Ideas/Solutions: There were a WIDE variety of ideas and solutions for this question. Bonnie Blan from Southwest Christian School was able to leverage discounted internet access for families in need using Kajeet and the BroadbandNow initiative. Others mentioned giving out hotspots as it would be likely that students wouldn’t be able to go to places like McDonald’s or Starbucks during a quarantine (although some adults might risk it for coffee :). With either of these solutions, you would need to set these up well before disaster strikes, but I like that schools are solving this issue regardless. In general, the responses from educators seemed to indicate that you should be prepared to have some analog mixed with digital. Writing in journals and reading are easy enough for ELA, but having prompts for writing helps. Some schools mentioned having students check out extra books out of the library just in case.

3. How prepared are staff and what is their role?

Like Jennifer mentioned, setting up a bunch of brand new tools during a stressful time like a long-term closure wouldn’t be wise. Staff will be worried about their own families as well as their students. Anything that is implemented would either need to be put in place before hand or easily deliverable to a teacher’s existing curriculum and instruction. While not ideal, this could mean just sending home paper or digital worksheets, but even that can be a challenge.

Ideas/Solutions: Having a plan in place with deliverables to staff would be a smart thing to create and have on hand regardless of a global pandemic. These can range from having some one-page step-sets that show teachers how to deliver a variety of content on your LMS of choice to an internal website with a range of ideas for online learning. Schools can leverage tools like Microsoft Teams as a way to collaborate or have conversations or create Padlet walls that students can post ideas on. Any and all solutions should be web-based, device agnostic and able to work on a smartphone as that may be the only online access they have.

One bit of advice from Jennifer Pearson, a Tech Coordinator who works at the International School of Nanshan Shenzhen in China – “There should be a plan. The plan should be consistent and NOT introduce a bunch of new techy tools.”

4. Are these days recognized by your state or country as actual instructional days?

As you might imagine, each state and country has different rules around this. Here in Texas, we count instructional days based on the actual amount of minutes our students are physically in school. While there might be exemptions made, currently those days won’t count and schools would presumably have to extend the school year to make up for the loss of days and weeks while shut down which would likely push through the end of June. While I think learning should still continue even if your state or country doesn’t recognize it officially, this brings about many other questions, including contract lengths of your professional teaching staff.

Ideas/Solutions: Some states, like Illinois, recognizes a handful of “eLearning Days” that can often times come about due to poor weather. These days are counted as official instructional days and were recognized by the state, which means no make-up days at the end of the year. Phil Hintz from Gurnee D56 in the Chicago area was a part of a handful of districts that ran the pilot for eLearning days starting in 2016. While not a solution for weeks of closure, the framework they built was around giving students windows of time to complete assignments and using Title 1 funds to get those without access Kajeet Hotspots. Here’s a video of his school’s experience with eLearning day.

5. What role do other “non-classroom” professionals play?

In an average school building there are many professional, salaried staff working along side the classroom teachers. Some of these teach special area subjects like art, music and PE. Others include counselors, nurses, and campus administration. While the majority of the interaction of students will come from the teacher in an eLearning concept, these staff still have a role to play.

Ideas/Solutions: Principals are the go to source for school-to-home communication. They should be posting updates regularly to both parents but also to staff and help identify families that might not have online access at home. They also have to set expectations for teaching staff in making sure online instruction is consistent. Special area teachers should continue to serve students and provide instruction whether it be having students post a video of them doing push-ups on a FlipGrid or capture their art and reflect using a digital portfolio tool like Bulb. Counselors and nurses can provide support to families in need either through one-on-one at home visits or through online video chat tools.

6. What about itinerant and paraprofessional staff?

Those professional staff on salary can rest easy knowing that they are still getting their paycheck every month, even if the school is closed. Sure they may have to work some extra days, but they aren’t clocking in to work an hourly job. Custodians, administrative assistants, cafeteria workers and teacher aides don’t have that luxury. For them, a shut down could be a devastating hit to them financially if they aren’t working.

Ideas/Solutions: There are still roles for many of these staff to play even if the building is closed, but they may be very different compared to the normal school day. Custodial staff should do a deep cleaning of the building and prepare it for the eventual return of students. Admin assistants can help connect teachers with students and vice versa as they have access to parent contact information. Cafeteria workers can help provide and deliver meals to those families in need. Teacher aides can use tools like Google Hangouts to meet with those students they serve and check in or assist on the work that they have to do at home. In some cases, while human contact in masse is to be avoided, they can also make one-on-one home visits like the counselors and nurses. While the building may be closed, there is still plenty of work to be done and these staff are vital to keeping things running efficiently as well as helping our students with special needs.

In summary, there is a LOT to consider before shutting a school down for a few days or even a few weeks. The questions above are just the tip of the iceberg, but they come from a multitude of librarians, teachers, and administrators across the world that genuinely care about keeping the progress of learning happening despite the closure of a physical building.

What plans does your school or district have in place? If I’ve learned anything from this post, it’s that we all are better when we work and collaborate on ideas together.

cross-posted at https://hookedoninnovation.com

Carl Hooker has been a part of a strong educational shift with technology integration since becoming an educator. As Director of Innovation & Digital Learning at Eanes ISD, he has helped spearhead the LEAP program, which put one-to-one iPads in the hands of all K-12 students in his 8000-student district. He is also the founder of “iPadpalooza”- a three-day “learning festival” held in Austin annually. He's also the author of the six-book series titled Mobile Learning Mindset, a guide for teachers, administrators, parents and others to support and embrace mobile learning in our schools. Read more at Hooked on Innovation.

Read Across America Day (March 2)

Dr. Seuss’ birthday is a great day to collaborate with your school or local library. For classroom activities, check out the educator’s guide at seussville.com

You can also find plenty of tools and resources at readacrossamerica.org

Irish-American Heritage Month 

In 1991 President George H.W. Bush issued a proclamation designating March as Irish-American Heritage month. After Congress passed a number of public bills,  presidents have been issuing an annual proclamation since 1997.

The American Presidency Project page offers detailed information.

Did you Know the first NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade was held in 1762. That’s 14 years before the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence!

According to the U.S. Census, 32 million, or 9.9% of U.S. residents, claimed Irish ancestry in 2018.

The National Education Association also offers free resources for grades PreK through 12 for teaching about St. Patrick’s Day.   

Women’s History Month

You just can’t beat the Library of Congress for historical resources about Women's History Month. Be sure to check out the tabs at the top of the page that include interviews with amazing women in all fields. At the bottom, you can meet some women in space. The For Teachers tab has resources and lesson plans chosen by teachers.

Your Dream offers 30 Powerful Quotes for Women's History Month.  

STEM month 

Rasmussen College offers 11 Engaging STEM Activities for Kids.

And here are Hands on Engineering STEM Projects for kids.

Cross posted at collaborationsdigitalandotherwise.weebly.com

Deborah Marshall is the Department Chair of Career & Technical Education and Lisa McKnight Ward is the librarian at Granby High School in Norfolk, Virginia. Both are Nationally Board Certified, former Teachers of the Year, who have taught multiple subjects including AP and IB courses. They have over a decade of experience collaborating on technology-based learning. Read more at collaborationsdigitalandotherwise.weebly.com/

“Every art communicates because it expresses. It enables us to share vividly and deeply in meanings… For communication is not announcing things… Communication is the process of creating participation, of making common what had been isolated and singular… the conveyance of meaning gives body and definiteness to the experience of the one who utters as well as to that of those who listen.” – John Dewey

The idea of Communication really is more then a skill… it is a foundation for learning. A baby learns the art of Communication through the very need to Communicate. When students first begin their schooling they are are filled with the desire to communicate. They understand that communication is a two way street. Somewhere along the way learning in school begins to become a one way street. Students become communicated at , expected to absorb knowledge through listening. While listening is a communication skill, it is only part of the communication necessary for authentic learning to take place.

A classroom that allows students to not just listen, but to reflect and communicate with teachers, other students, and mentors provides a whole new scope to the standards and related learning possibilities. Various avenues of communication provide students different opportunities to learn while facilitating those important communication skills. Students can see how texting, emailing, video conferencing, Socratic Seminars, online discussions, and face to face conversation all provides different  takes when communicating. They begin to see how Communication connects with effective Collaboration. It is true that Communication pushes critical thinking by allowing the visualization of a student’s  thinking and the thinking of others. Students are allowed to see how creativity can be used to make their own Communication more powerful. Compare a Ted Style talk to a typical power point. Students must realize that a presentation is more about Communication then the technology prop being used.

The John Dewey quote …“the conveyance of meaning gives body and definiteness to the experience of the one who utters as well as to that of those who listen” presents an amazing picture of what learning in a classroom should look like. How do we create a classroom that exemplifies this style of powerful Communication? The teacher must be intentional and guide students. There still must be moments following student exploration and collaboration where the teacher provides or facilitates Communication. Concurrently, teachers must make sure that their lessons allow for students to practice all avenues of Communications!  Often, this practice can be seen in STEM and PBL classrooms. It is exciting to see students discuss, listen, debate, question, persuade, reflect, and explain their thoughts as they conquer the standards. What tools do we have that help provide and facilitate a Communication experience that provides the opportunity for authentic and deeper learning?

Welcome to the resources! I think it is important to define and promote Communication though its various attributes. The facilitation must be intentional with appropriate scaffolds in place. I hope you find the resources below helpful. Taking the journey toward students centered classroom rich in Communication is a wonderful and rewarding journey for you and your students. Start out taking a few steps with a rubric, a student reflection, or a small lesson. Before you know it your students will take you the rest of the way.  Please enjoy the resources below and be sure to share with others!

Ten Reasons to Promote Communications in the Classroom

1. Provides students the opportunity to own and internalize their learning by providing an explanation to others.
2. Facilitates critical thinking by pushing students to visualize their thinking and the thinking of others.
3. Allows students to practice actively listening providing other viewpoints while building empathy and understanding for diversity
4. Supports the ability to Communicate in various ways depending on situation and resources available.
5. Encourages students to reflect and  visualize their thinking and important concepts in content and connections between multiple content and real-world concepts.
6. Allows for the progression from surface learning, to deeper learning, to a final transfer of learning through reflection on multiple viewpoints, disciplines, and possibilities
7. Provides an avenue to explore the strengths and weaknesses of different forms of communication involving face to face, virtual, oral, and written.
8. Supports the power of individual and group voice.
9. Provides important avenues of communication that allows for active listening, persuasion, healthy discourse, multiple viewpoints, and needed empathy.
10. Builds the ability to convey a message though knowledge of content along with the ability to deliver a message in powerful and effective ways

Ten Ways to Facilitate Student Creativity in the Classroom and School

1. Intentionally go beyond remembering and understanding with Blooms (The standards often force teachers to get students ready for the test… which means we miss analyzing, applying, synthesizing which are all a part of important student Communication)
2. Emphasize different modalities of Communication. ( Have students practice Communication using texting, acceptable social media, online discussions, video conferencing, face to face, and discuss these avenues strengths and weaknesses)
3. Provide students with a Communication rubric. (Have them look at the rubric before an activity that demands Communication, and once again when they are finished)
4. Make assessment of Communication an ongoing effort. (While the teacher can assess, have students assess themselves. Self assessment can be powerful)
5. Concentrate on specific indicators in a rubric. (There are various indicators such as; active listening, following or providing direction, explaining a view point,  selling an idea, and paraphrasing another persons idea. Concentrate on just one indicator while doing a lesson. There can even be an exit ticket reflection)
6. Start a lesson out… with Communication. ( Find a current event or interesting article/media that students are interested in that relates to standards. Provides ways for students to explain their thinking while also listening to thoughts from others.)
7. Post a Creative Communication Poster in the room. (This poster could be a copy of a rubric or even a list of “I Can Statements”. Point it out before a Communication activity.
8. Make Communication activities and peer discussions part of your formative  and summative assessment.  (Move around the room, talk to groups and students, stop the whole group to make adjustments. Assign multiple ways to demonstrate learning… go beyond the reading from a PowerPoint presentation)
9. Find ways to build Communication outside the classroom. (Think of ways to have students Communicate with other classrooms in the school, city, state, or world. Provide digital ways to connect with community and mentors)
10. Plan for a school wide emphasis. (A learning culture that builds Communication is usually bigger then one classroom. Schools and classrooms that practice student owned/centered learning promote Communication. Develop school-wide vocabulary, posters, and initiatives.)

I have been mentioning rubrics and assessment tools through out this post. To me, these are essential in building that culture of Communication in the classroom. I want to provide you with some great resources that will give your some powerful tools to facilitate and assess the skill of Communication.  Keep in mind that students can also self assess and journal using prompts from a Communication Rubric. In fact, peer assessment using a rubric is powerful before a final presentation or competition event.

Ten Resources to Help with Assessment and Facilitation of Creativity

1. Habits of Mind – I think this is an awesome place to help teachers facilitate and assess Communication and more. Check out the free resources page which even has some wonderful posters. One of my favorites is the rubrics found on this research page. Decide on spending some time because there are a lot of great resources.
2. PBLWorks – The number one place for PBL in the world is at PBLWorks. You may know it as the BUCK Institute or BIE. I am fortunate to be part of their National Faculty which is probably why I rank it as number one. I encourage you to visit their site for everything PBL.  This link brings you to the resource area where you will discover some amazing  rubrics. In harmony with this article on Communication, be sure to check out the  Presentation Rubrics. You will find rubrics for grade bands K-2, 3-5, and 6-12. This really is a great place to start. You will need to sign up to be a member of PBLWorks. This is a wonderful idea, after-all it is free!
3. Microsoft Innovative Learning – This  website contains some powerful rubrics for assessing the 21st Century skills. The link will bring you to a PDF file with Communication rubrics you can use tomorrow for any grade level. Check out this two page document defining the 4 C’s and a movie giving you even more of an explanation.
4. New Tech School – This amazing PBL group of schools provide some wonderful Learning Rubrics in their free area.  Here you will find an interesting collection of Communication rubrics that assesses student learning in multiple areas. These are sure to get you off and started.
5. AACU Rubrics – You will find some great  written and oral communication rubrics. The VALUE rubrics were developed by teams of faculty experts representing colleges and universities across the United States through a process that examined many existing campus rubrics and related documents for each learning outcome and incorporated additional feedback from faculty.
6. Project Zero – The Visual Thinking Core Routines helps students develop their capacity to think critically while expressing their ideas and listening to others.
7. Edutopia Communication Skills – Check out this section of Edutopia for some amazing articles to plant seeds of Communication in you school or classroom. Enjoy the possibilities.
8. CTE Online – Check out these PBL Projects that emphasize Communication Skills.
9. Positive Psychology – Check out these 39 Communication Skill activities.
10. NSFR Protocols – These are a must view for those trying to find protocols that allow students and teachers to practice Communication skills that will make a difference!

I Can Statements for Communication

1. I can explain my thinking regarding an idea or concept to others.
2. I can actively listen to others and repeat what I have heard.
3. I can provide productive feedback to others.
4. I can practice good presentation skills including proper speech, eye contact, voice inflection, and knowledge content.
5. I can practice good listening skills including eye contact, positive body language, and helpful feedback
6. I can use multiple ways to effectively communicate including written, face to face, and digital.
7. I can determine the best form of communication for different situations while finding the most effective resources when explaining or presenting.
8. I can practice empathy and understanding as I discuss with others.
9. I can use imagination and creativity to present an idea.
10. I can employ my knowledge and enthusiasm above any technology or prop when presenting a concept, topic, or idea.

cross-posted at 21centuryedtech.wordpress.com

Michael Gorman oversees one-to-one laptop programs and digital professional development for Southwest Allen County Schools near Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is a consultant for Discovery Education, ISTE, My Big Campus, and November Learning and is on the National Faculty for The Buck Institute for Education. His awards include district Teacher of the Year, Indiana STEM Educator of the Year and Microsoft’s 365 Global Education Hero. Read more at 21centuryedtech.wordpress.com.

Last summer, Adam Phyall and I were engaged in an interesting conversation. This isn’t uncommon as anyone that knows us knows we can debate and discuss just about anything under the sun, but this time it was different. For one, we weren’t at a conference or a school building. We were “tubing” down a river in central Texas (a favorite past-time of ours down here). I throw that in not as a non sequitur, but to mention that we were both out of our normal “professional” environments which enabled some freedom in what turned into a highly engaging discussion around equity. During our 3 hours down the river we discussed our backgrounds. Where we came from. How we were raised. What we each had to overcome and what kind of supports we had. How we raise our children and how we find and cultivate “our crew” of friends.

We discussed race openly and honestly. This included conversations that might be uncomfortable for some, but with our years of friendship and genuine empathy, it was absolutely captivating.  We wondered – how do we help students understand the differences in race and culture in a way that is productive? Too often uncomfortable conversations are avoided or left to HR personnel that come in and talk to staff about equity in the hopes it makes its way into the classroom. Not knowing how to proceed on that front, we stuck a pin in the conversation until a later date.

That later date was a month later. I was about to take the stage at the GAMEIS conference in Savannah when Adam came in to chat. We sat in the front row and re-engaged in the conversation from a month before, albeit in a much more formal setting now. As we went back and forth, we weren’t aware that more and more people began to seat around us and listen in to our discussion. They were both “highly engaged and intellectually stimulated” (their quote, not mine) at not only our content but how we addressed what they admitted was a hard topic to tackle with honesty. At one point near the end of the conversation, Adam remarked, “We should just do this as a session.”

Our opportunity would arrive just a few weeks later. As we are both national advisors for Future Ready Schools, there was an opportunity to present our idea at the February TCEA conference in Austin. Future Ready Schools not only tackles the issues of technology, budget, privacy, and curriculum, but is also an organization that champions opportunities to solve issues of inequity in schools across the country. Adam and I had our opportunity to formalize what started as an informal discussion and turn it into an interactive conversation around equity.

On February 3rd, we walked into our session with both excitement and un-easiness as to how our conversation would be accepted. To ramp up the talk, we decided to wear coordinating t-shirts of “Ebony” for me and “Ivory” for him. As it was a Monday morning session in a week-long conference focused on technology tools, we weren’t sure how many people to expect around the topic. We were pleased to see so many show up ready to engage and discuss the truth about stereotypes we make regularly in our schools and how to use student backgrounds as a way to better inform our instruction rather than pass judgment on their character.

During one of the segments, we asked the audience to list what words we use in education that could lead unintended stereotypes. While Adam and I brainstormed a few, they came up with an overwhelming amount as you can see in the screen shot below:

We also discussed recent cases in Texas and New Jersey of students being asked to change their appearance and what other cultural assumptions we might be making in schools. Technology also has a part to play in this discussion. As was witnessed at the conference, eSports is making a HUGE splash across many high schools throughout the country. Those students on eSports teams can practice in school but many also practice at home on $3000+ computer gaming systems.  That immediately eliminates many of our lower-economic students from participating, a talking point many in the crowd hadn’t immediately considered.

While I won’t go through every point of the talk, our main goal was not to tell them how to solve every issue of inequity, but rather to make them think and reflect on their current situations. Neither of us represent an entire race. We only represent a viewpoint of two educators that have lived somewhat mirrored lives only from opposite identities when it comes to race. We listed the following three questions for audience members to reflect on:

At the end, we attempted to summarize our unique viewpoints with passion and emotion in 3 minute co-poetry slam titled “Ebony and Ivory”. After the talk ended, we were overwhelmed with the amount of support and interest from the audience. Many commented on the fact that these were the conversations we needed to be having regularly in schools. What kinds of conversations are you having at your school around equity and race? Too often times, these conversations are not conversations at all. They are a set of bullet points on a powerpoint at the beginning of the year staff orientation or a required video that staff watch along with blood-born pathogens so that schools can “check the box” on equity training.

We had definitely touched on a nerve while at the same time stretching both of us out of comfort zones when it comes to presenting. We’re not sure where this goes next but we do have some plans on how to engage students more in this conversation at the classroom level (stay tuned). We also hope to expand this session to more events in the future, as we feel this is a conversation that needs to take place in district offices and classrooms across the country.

cross-posted at https://hookedoninnovation.com

Carl Hooker has been a part of a strong educational shift with technology integration since becoming an educator. As Director of Innovation & Digital Learning at Eanes ISD, he has helped spearhead the LEAP program, which put one-to-one iPads in the hands of all K-12 students in his 8000-student district. He is also the founder of “iPadpalooza”- a three-day “learning festival” held in Austin annually. He's also the author of the six-book series titled Mobile Learning Mindset, a guide for teachers, administrators, parents and others to support and embrace mobile learning in our schools. Read more at Hooked on Innovation.

Where do you go when you want to learn about new EdTech tools? From checking out new blog posts (like this one!) to searching hashtags on social media, there are lots of ways to learn about new EdTech tools. When I attend a conference, I also stay on the lookout for companies that have just come on the scene. This way, I can connect with them, ask them questions, and see if their booth is “buzzing” with excitement from other educators, too.

If you follow along on Instagram, then you already know that I spent last week at the FETC Conference in Miami. This trip was my fifth time at this event and third as a featured speaker. In between leading workshops and sessions, I was able to get down to the Expo Hall and learn about some new EdTech tools.

New EdTech Tools

In this blog post, I want to take you through a few new EdTech tools worth exploring this year. A few of these companies were totally new to me, and several were part of the Startup Pavilion. If there is a new EdTech tool that has you excited, share on social and tag @classtechtips.

Coding for Kids

The first on the list is Matatalab, a coding kit for kids that I had the chance to see in action. It provides a hands-on opportunity for students to explore coding principles. The coding set gives students access to a mat and pieces to move into a pattern.

At FETC this year, I tried out Matatalab’s coding kit and was very impressed. They also have a musical component that you might want to explore, too. Above you’ll find a picture I snapped after chatting with one of their team members.

Little Genius Starter Kit

I’m a big fan of Osmo and have seen their apps and tools in action in classrooms across the country. At the FETC conference, I spent some time exploring their “new to me” Little Genius Starter Kit.

The quick video below gives you a sense of what it looks like in action. If this video piques your interest, I definitely encourage you to take a closer look at their website. The Little Genius Starter Kit includes four different options, including skill building practice with storytelling and letter recognition.

FETC Startup Pavilion

One thing I love about walking around the Expo Hall floor is checking out up-and-coming EdTech companies. The Startup Pavilion at FETC was full of new companies and new EdTech tools. I want to spotlight five of the more than a dozen companies and tools featured in the Startup Pavilion this year. I’ll give you a quick overview and share one reason why it grabbed my attention.

Sketch Comedy SAT Videos

If you’re looking for a new way for students to prepare for the ACT or SAT exams, you’ll want to check out Prepmedians. This website is full of engaging, sketch comedy-inspired videos to help students get ready to take these exams. Full disclosure — I’ve met their enthusiastic founder before and went to high school with his brother, but didn’t know about this awesome endeavor until I came across it on the list of startups at this year’s pavilion.

This EdTech tool grabbed my attention because… I love engaging videos that communicate information in a new way, and this definitely fits that description.

Interactive Reading Library

As you can see in the video below, Kidint is all about storytelling. It gives users access to hundreds of books and encourages reading together as a family. It works on a variety of devices and lets new users try it out for free for a full month. I like how families can set up profiles for their children and how it awards badges, too.

This EdTech tool grabbed my attention because… I’m always looking for apps and websites that promote joint media engagement.

Use this link to download my free guide with more reading and writing EdTech tool recommendations.

Video Playlists

If you listen to my Easy EdTech Podcast, you know that I love videos and even have an episode all about creating video playlists in the classroom. Well, Vubble is an EdTech tool designed to create video feeds for students with high-quality content. They’ve partnered with a bunch of notable folks already, including Pearson and the Canadian Film Centre.

This EdTech tool grabbed my attention because… video is a powerful way to communicate information, and the more we can make sure this happens in a high-quality way, the better.

Interactive Math Game for Kids

Boddle is an interactive math game for students in elementary school. It’s an adaptive learning platform and provides content tailored to the needs of individual students in your class. With standards connections and assessments for a variety of math skills, Boddle is worth checking out.

This EdTech tool grabbed my attention because… of the combination of differentiated resources and gamified learning for math.

Digital Reading Platform

Glose is a reading platform that gives students and teachers access to hundreds of books — for free. Students can customize the reading interface, and teachers can monitor student progress. It creates a social network so students can talk about what they’re reading and connect with others. 

This EdTech tool grabbed my attention because… Glose has both a free and paid version meaning you can jump into this ebook library right away.

cross posted at classtechtips.com

Dr. Monica Burns is a former classroom teacher, Speaker, and Curriculum & EdTech Consultant. She is the author of Tasks Before Apps (ASCD) and #FormativeTech (Corwin). Visit Monica's site ClassTechTips.com for more ideas on how to become a tech-savvy teacher.

Catch up on everything new in G Suite for Education from January 2020, and see great ideas and resources!

Below is the recorded video from our January 2020 Google User Meeting, along with the meeting agenda and all the awesome resources and G Suite updates from the summer months. This includes 37 new Google updates and 15 Google resources for your class.

The monthly meetings are hosted by the Google Educator Group of Ohio, but are open to anyone from any location. The purpose of these meetings is to:

• Connect Google-using educators
• Share the latest Google Apps news and features
• Provide tutorials, demonstrations, and how-to’s
• Share best practices of how Google Apps is being used within schools
• Ask questions and get answers

The video from the meeting is recorded and available for later viewing for those who cannot attend or connect live. See below to view the recorded video, agenda, and all the resources from the January 2020 meeting:

Note: If you would like to see each of the agenda items with links directly to those spots in the video, open the video using the YouTube link below and then click “Show More” below the video. 

 YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwPvr581ZU8

You can view the full Google Document agenda with links to all the Google Apps updates from the last month, as well as all the resources covered in the meeting in the Google Doc linked below.

View the agenda - Google Document link

Agenda details

Upcoming Events

• NEOTech 2020 (March 16-17) John S Knight Center in Akron - https://www.neotechconference.org/
• OETC - February 11-13, 2020 - https://oetc.ohio.gov/ - Google Meetup at OETC on 2/12 at 11:30AM at Flatiron
• ITIP Ohio Google Summit 2020- Kalahari Conference Center in Sandusky, May 10-12, 2020
• SPARCC Educational Technology Conference - Friday, August 7, 2020 - http://conference.apps.sparcc.org/ 

What's New in G Suite

December 2019

• 12/2/2019 - Drive file suggestions in Google Chrome will be generally available beginning in December - Resource Link
• 12/2/2019 - Improvements to image carousels, table of contents, and buttons in new Google Sites - Resource Link
• 12/3/2019 - Version History rolling out to the new Google Sites - Resource Link
• 12/3/2019 - Embed Cloud Search in your new Google Sites - Resource Link 
• 12/3/2019 - Dark mode available for Google Tasks on iOS - Resource Link
• 12/4/2019 - Review the latest changes to a new Google Site before publishing - Resource Link
• 12/4/2019 - Google launches Santa's Village site for this year with new educational and fun activities - Resource Link
• 12/4/2019 - Google rolls out Focus Mode as part of the Digital Wellbeing tools for Android - Resource Link
• 12/5/2019 - Google updating search results in Admin Console to be more helpful - Resource Link
• 12/6/2019 - Google Chrome prepares built-in QR code generator to share web addresses - Resource Link 
• 12/9/2019 - Propose a new meeting time or add a note to Calendar invites from Gmail - Resource Link
• 12/9/2019 - Google adds new option to attach emails to other emails in Gmail - Resource Link
• 12/10/2019 - Google expands password, phishing protections in Chrome and redesigns profiles - Resource Link
• 12/11/2019 - Google Search rolling out "smarter" Top Stories carousel with machine learning - Resource Link
• 12/12/2019 - Google's "Art Zoom" video series adds two new entries: "The Scream" by Edvard Munch and Botticcelli’s "Birth of Venus" - Resource Link
• 12/12/2019 - Google Assistant adds "Interpreter Mode" to provide live translation so you can have a back and forth conversation with someone speaking a foreign language - Resource Link
• 12/17/2019 - Google Calendar has started testing Google Tasks integration - Resource Link
• 12/17/2019 - Chrome OS gets update to control music from lock screen - Resource Link
• 12/17/2019 - Change to locations of booked rooms in Google Calendar events - Resource Link
• 12/18/2019 - Help your team get more out of G Suite with four new resources - Resource Link

January 2020

• 1/6/2020 - Doodle for Google 2020 contest now open - Resource Link
• 1/7/2020 - Google Assistant on Android will offer powerful "read this page" text to speech option for web pages - Resource Link
• 1/8/2020 - More options for copying presentations in Google Slides - Resource Link
• 1/8/2020 - Break out a single value within a pie chart in Google Sheets - Resource Link
• 1/9/2020 - Google Docs add-on "SAS Writing Reviser" to be discontinued on July 15, 2020 - Resource Link
• 1/13/2020 - Google Admin Console adds option for super admins to recover their passwords - Resource Link
• 1/15/2020 - Google updates timeline for discontinuing Chrome apps - Resource Link
• 1/16/2020 - Manage audio and video in Chrome with one click - Resource Link
• 1/21/2020 - G Suite Add-ons now generally available in Calendar, Gmail, and Google Drive - Resource Link
• 1/21/2020 - Originality reports and rubrics now generally available for Google Classroom users - Resource Link
• 1/21/2020 - Google updates the collection of creativity apps for Chromebooks to include WeVideo, Book Creator, Infinite Painter, Squid, Soundtrap and Explain Everything - Resource Link
• 1/21/2020 - Google extends support for new Chromebooks to 8 years, but also raises price for licenses - Resource Link
• 1/23/2020 - Google's Dataset Search comes out of beta - Resource Link
• 1/27/2020 - Google App Maker will be shut down on January 19, 2021 - Resource Link
• 1/28/2020 - Google Translate app to add "Transcribe" mode for long-form real-time translation - Resource Link
• 1/29/2020 - Google launches Tangi for 60-second how-to videos for art, cooking, DIY, fashion, lifestyle, and more - Resource Link
• 1/29/2020 - Hangouts Meet gets option to use your phone for your audio during a video call - Resource Link

Show and Tell

• SAMR matrix with Alex Oris - Resource Link
• Create Stop Motion Animation on a Chromebook using Stop Motion Animator - Resource Link
• Create Filters in Gmail - Resource Link
• Second Grade Harvest Holidays Hyperdoc - Resource Link
• Sheet Spider add-on for Google Sheets - Resource Link
• Easy Accents - New version of the popular Docs add-on released, needs reinstalled - Resource Link
• Stop, Breath, and Listen - Resource Link
• ScriptSlide - Resource Link - Add-on for Google Slides to display your speaker notes and then use your phone to remotely control your progress through the text.
• Google Calendar cheat sheet - Resource Link
• Writing Roadmap - Resource Link
• Picture in Picture extension for Chrome - Resource Link
• The easiest way to make a buzz-in type game to play with students - Resource Link
• Screencastify extension updates free version with all premium features, now with a 5 minute limit per video - Resource Link
• Forget Ctrl + V... Learn Windows + V - Resource Link
• Classroom Assist - Google Innovator Project- Resource link

To see the schedule for upcoming Google User Group meetings visit:
Google User Group schedule - https://sites.google.com/view/geg-ohio/monthly-meetings

cross posted at www.controlaltachieve.com

Eric Curts is an education trainer and consultant with over 20 years' experience throughout the U.S. He is an authorized Google Education Trainer and a Google Certified Innovator. Read his blog at www.controlaltachieve.com and follow him on Google+ and @ericcurts on Twitter.

All schools receiving public funding must make content accessible to everyone including those with disabilities. If your school or district is interested in helping staff understand why this is important, then consider Accessibility for Everyone for your next great book study.

Inclusive research

In the book author Laura Kalbag talks about the importance of including people with disabilities in user research studies. This can serve as a reminder to educators about the importance of designing learning in ways that includes feedback from students as to the ways they learn best.

Real life experiences

Throughout the book, Kalbag points to real life experiences of how accessibility helps her brother Sam, who grew up with cerebral palsy. As an educator, hearing how her brother interacts with technology provides a strong case for the need to have technology integrated into the curriculum. Her experiences with Sam also point to the importance of every individual being able to manage the accessibility options that best work for them. 

What's inside?

The book is 160 pages or nearly four hours on Audible and goes through the following topics:

• Considering Accessibility 
• Disabilities and Impairments 
• Planning for Accessibility 
• Content and Design 
• Accessibility and HTML
• Evaluation and Testing Laws and Guidelines

Continued Learning

Only digital content is accessible content. Learning how to create accessible content should, and possible in the future, will, be a requirement for all educators. To help keep up with the field you can follow Laura Kalbag on Twitter. She also recommends following the hashtag #AXSCHAT where people talk about their accessibility needs and possible solutions. The A11Y Project, a community-driven effort to make web accessibility easier,  has a whole list of people to follow. Many of those listed have accessibility needs and can provide a personal perspective. 

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

As I got out of my Lyft at the Miami airport Friday, I realize I am saying goodbye to some great new connections I made. This year’s FETC made a considerable impact on me. My next challenge is how to take all these connections and learning and enhance education in my district as well as grow as a leader. I sat at the airport a little numb. Maybe from all the walking, possibly from carrying around my books for the meet the author table (I need a cart on wheels), perhaps a little sad about just meeting some new connections and now leaving, or just could be too many “complementary” refreshments. My guess is a combination of all. I got the Miami airport and made a video urging everyone to reflect.

However, I began to reflect on the flight home and thought to myself, “what does that mean?” We often give advice and maybe do not know how it will look in real-time. Just like me urging others to “Reflect.” So, I began to reflect on reflection (say that five times fast). I started by remembering a quote from Margaret J. Wheatley “Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.” My first thought is, “Oh, I want to achieve so much after this event, I better get to reflecting so I can get to the action.”

My next thought is, “How fortunate am I to have had this experience. And how honored to be mentioned in the same lens as educators I look up to on the administrative track.”

My next thought was, “reflection is one skill I did not use early enough in my tenure as a principal.” Now reflection is a skill I use regularly and find it a great benefit. Reflection takes many forms, and I think it is an integral part of education and our growth as leaders. Great leaders/teachers reflect on their practice and tweak their plans, units, interactions, and attitudes. With a profession as challenging as teaching, self-reflection offers leaders and teachers an opportunity to think about what works and what doesn’t in their schools/classrooms. This reflection (well blog to reflect) will be done in one take and probably spelling errors or run-on sentences. For me, reflection is about free flowing thought and not going back to wordsmith or knit pick. I typically don’t share my reflection but wanted to be vulnerable and share and share some reflection strategies.

Self-reflection is about asking yourself thought-provoking questions so that you can develop a deeper level of understanding yourself. New thoughts lead to new emotions and, consequently, to further actions and personal growth. Too often in education, we are so busy that you aren’t even aware of how you’re feeling or take time to take a breath. As we leave Miami or in whatever capacity you are in, take time to reflect on what next steps. I recommend these strategies to support your reflection.

Look in the mirror: I think the first step is to consider looking in the mirror and being honest with yourself. Before you can look deep, you should examine your beliefs and successes or areas of improvement with new ideas from FETC or ideas you launched this year.

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten: Jessie Potter used this expression in 1981, and I have heard it and used it many times. It is unavoidable, but we all get comfortable with specific strategies and methods. As educational settings evolve and change, we should be willing to update and modify our approach to educating students. As hard as this may be, we must reflect on our approaches and see if it is best practice for the student’s needs.

Write to reflect: I was not someone who liked writing but recently have found this reflective practice provides vital insights and allows for free-flowing thinking that you can look back on overtime.

Use a critical friend: I know I can be biased toward my own strengths and weaknesses, and because of this, it is extremely important I use a critical friend during self-reflection. The best thing about using a trusted colleague is they will give you honest advice and feedback and notice about you that provide insight into who you really are as an educator.

We often ask students to “Think-Pair-Share” but is it just “Pair-Share” how much thinking time do we give. Hence this blog coming out five days after landing in Boston. I wanted time to think before I shared it.

My biggest take away from #FETC is we are #BETTERTOGETHER. There is NO magic potion to change education, not a quick fix or program. It is impactful educators. I met so many and learned from their stories, and I hope they were able to take from mine.

Think about some of the recent movie blockbusters like The Avengers, Justice League, and X-Men. Yes, these are fictional characters, but what do they have in common? They are all stories of individuals combining their talents to achieve a common goal. Collaboration produces victory in the world of blockbuster movies and can help you do the same in education.

Unlike professionals who work in the private sector, educators spend most of the day with children in classrooms or with other adults as school/district leaders. How do we prioritize finding ways for educators to work together when it’s hard for them to find even a few minutes to use the bathroom. My biggest take away from #FETC is continuing to stay connected and learn from others. One of my best sessions was turning the floor over to Jeni Long (@jlo731) and Sallee Clark (@SalleeClark), two EdTech Coaches, and letting them shine. I learned a ton, and our professional connected deepened. Why not…I shouldn’t do that because my name was on the program, or I am a Doctor and Feature Speaker. Nope, it is about learning, and our session was better because of our collaboration.

I had other reflections takeaways such as:

• Taking risks in teaching and learning and letting your students’ creativity and discovery learning take center stage.
• Upgrading Your PBL Practice: New Support for Project-Based Teaching
• Challenge yourself to be the best you can be.
• Tell your district/school’s story: Branding your learning culture is everyone’s job.
• Be flexible with learning spaces: Students want more than the “sit and get”—they want to be actively involved in their learning.
• Create ongoing projects: The key to projects is to provide plenty of real-world choices that enable students to demonstrate what they are learning.

So as we all head back to our roles and try to prioritize all the learning. Well, unless you are cool enough to head to BETT. FYI, I want to go next year if anyone can hook me up.

Anyway… as we look to implement all our learning, start with reflection. It’s important to take time to reflect before jumping into new ideas or strategies. Three days full of speakers and breakout learning at FETC gave everyone a lot to soak in. Them draft a plan. As tempting as it might be to put things into practice right away, mapping out a plan is often the most effective strategy. Take the learning and make it your own and see how it fits with your district/class. The implementation will not be believable and sustainable if you repeat a speaker’s message, as valuable as it may have been, without making the idea your own.

I am so fortunate to have met or reconnected with so many impactful educators. Either in my session or at events – I am driven to take what I learned, continue to evolve, and put ideas into practice. And of course will remember the fun too…ya Miami is a fun place! See you in Orlando for FETC 21.

cross posted at https://techinnovation.live

Dr. Matthew X. Joseph is currently the Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment in Leicester Public Schools. He has been a school and district leader in many capacities in public education over his 25 years in the field. Experiences such as the Director of Digital Learning and Innovation, elementary school principal, classroom teacher, and district professional development specialist. His work and experience focus on supporting teaching and learning. Follow Dr. Joseph on twitter at @MatthewXJoseph or read his blog techinnovation.live

Graphic Organizers, including mind maps, Venn diagrams, infographics,and other tools, allow teachers and students to organize and present facts and ideas visually in order to facilitate teaching and learning. The web tools and apps below have made it easy to create beautiful and productive graphic organizers.

*This list is in alphabetical order

1. bubble.us - A popular web-based tool that allows users to to create mind maps, save them as images, share, collaborate and present.
2. iBrainstorm - A free iOS app for  iPad and iPhone that lets users organize ideas with digital sticky notes, and offers quick and easy multi device sharing. 
3. Checkvist - A great site for planning projects and organizing tasks and to-do lists.
4. Conceptboard - Design and create a digital interactive whiteboard to increase collaboration sharing and productivity.
5. Mind42 - Mind42 offers simple, free collaborative mind-mapping software that runs in your browser. Can search publicly shared templates by tag or popularity.
6. MindMeister - Stylish mind mapping site offering the ability  customize maps and embed into a site or blog. 
7. Mindomo - One of my favorite brainstorming sites that also lets a user flip their classroom, collaborate, comment, and much more.
8. MURAL - Use digital sticky notes to create and organize lists, flowcharts, diagrams, frameworks, methods and drawings. Integrated with Dropbox, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google Calendar and other top apps. 
9. Popplet - Suitable for web and iPad, Popplet helps students to think and learn visually by brainstorming and mind mapping.
   
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10. StormBoard - Provides online brainstorming and collaboration in real-time, with certified data security. Integrated with popular apps such as Google Sheets, Slack, Microsoft Teams  and others
11. Storyboard That - An excellent site with an education portal that teachers use to create timelines, storyboards, graphic organizers (t-charts, grids, etc.), and more. Lesson plans are included. 
12. Super Teacher Worksheets - An amazing site offering a wealth of educational resources, printable graphic organizers, and worksheets for all subjects.
13. Venngage - Users can create stunning infographics, mind maps, timelines, and more. Browse thousands of infographics, brochures and more in their gallery.
14. Webspiration Classroom - From the creators of Inspiration a very popular web based program for creating visual brainstorms that can then be turned into an outline with one mouse click. 
15. WiseMapping - A free collaborative, web based open-source tool, great for creating visual mind maps and brainstorms.  

David Kapuler is an educational consultant with more than 10 years of experience working in the K-12 environment. For more information about his work, contact him at dkapuler@gmail.com and read his blog at cyber-kap.blogspot.com.

Engage: Hero is Called

• Play Operation. 
• What are you curious about?

Explore: Hero is Challenged

• Take apart Operation and inspect how it works. Explain using words and a diagram. 
• Create your own game by repurposing the materials. Additional materials are welcome. 

Explain: Hero is Mentored

• Play with this simulation
• Complete this digital handout. 

Extend: Hero is Transformed

• Using only the materials provided, create a circuit that serves a useful purpose.
• Pitch your idea here. 

Evaluate: Hero is Judged

• Follow rubric here. 
• Present project. 

All lessons based on the 5E Learning Cycle/Hero's Journey overlap shown below: 

cross posted at www.cyclesoflearning.com

Ramsey Musallam teaches science and robotics at Sonoma Academy in Santa Rosa, California, with the aim of fostering inquiry-based learning environments fueled by student curiosity. He presents widely on sparking student curiosity and teaching with technology. Musallam is a Google Certified Teacher, a YouTube Star Teacher, and a Leading Edge Certified Teacher. Watch his TED talk here and read his blog at www.cyclesoflearning.com.

I’m starting to get the feeling that we’ve reached critical mass. When I work with social studies teachers around the country, I always make sure they’re familiar with the work by Sam Wineburg and the Stanford History Education Group.

SHEG’s Reading Like a Historian lessons and Beyond the Bubble assessments are the kinds of non-negotiable tools that belong in every teacher’s toolkit. But for the longest time, it seemed as if very few teachers had actually heard about the SHEG site. Of course, as soon as these teachers had the chance to explore the available tools, they were blown away.

Lately I’ve run into more and more teachers who are already familiar with the site and are finding very cool ways of integrating SHEG resources into their instruction. Maybe we’ve reached the point where most teachers have heard about the SHEG goodness and we all love it. (If you’re still not sure what sorts of SHEG lessons and assessments are available, for Pete’s sake, stop reading and head over to check it out.)

If you are using SHEG resources, I feel a little like a TV infomercial host this morning when I say, “but wait . . . there’s more.”

Because SHEG has some new stuff.

Several years ago, SHEG added what they called Civic Online Reasoning tools. But it was a bit understated. This fall?

They’ve gone full blown into supporting both lessons and assessments that you can use to help kids make sense of online information. Their new COR site has been re-organized and repackaged, they’ve added to new tools and resources, and they’re sharing the research that supports their work.

On the new site, SHEG founder Sam Wineburg posted a great article titled “What’s at Stake.” Based a bit on his latest book, Why Study History (When It’s Already on Your Phone,) the article lays out the reasons why these new SHEG resources are so important. Simply put, Wineburg claims that our democracy is at stake.

University of Connecticut professor Michael Lynch calls the internet “both the world’s best fact checker and the world’s best bias confirmer – often at the same time.”

I’ve come to believe that reliable information is to civic health what clean water and proper sanitation are to public health. Never has so much information been at our fingertips as it is today. Whether this bounty will make us smarter and better informed or more ignorant and narrow-minded will depend on one thing: our educational response to this challenge.

Their short video clip also lays out some of the great reasons why we should all be checking out these new tools:

The curriculum is broken into lessons, assessments, and what SHEG is calling collections. At first, it might be a bit confusing finding what you need. But keep at it – all of the tools are based on strategies they’ve identified when observing fact checkers from the nation’s most prestigious news organizations. The curriculum is the “fruit of years of research and field-testing.” Their work is enriched by their ongoing collaboration with the Poynter Institute and participation in the MediaWise initiative.

The cool thing about all of the resources (not just the COR tools) created by SHEG is that they’ve been tested in real classrooms. I love that the stuff I’m getting has been vetted by actual teachers who’ve used these things with kids.

All of the work is based on three questions:

The best way to find what you’re looking for is to simply click on one of the three questions. This takes you directly to that section of tools for quick and easy access.

You can also click the Curriculum tab, then Lessons & Assessments, and finally the List button on the right hand side. This gives you all of the resources in scrollable and viewable format. You also have the option to use a keyword search but . . . until you’ve played with the site a bit, you’re probably not really sure what to search for.

A great example of the kinds of things your kids will learn through COR is the ability to evaluate photos with reverse image search. Photographs and other images circulate rapidly online and are often gripping, persuasive forms of evidence. It is difficult to tell if these images accurately depict what their posters claim they do, and it is often tempting to take these images at face value. If we trust images without verifying their accuracy, we risk believing false claims and narratives. This lesson helps you train your kids to be better at discovering origins of images they experience online. And every lesson and assessment comes with a student video and teaching materials that are available for download.

But no matter how you find and use what you need, this is a valuable third leg of the SHEG stool. History lessons. History assessments. And now civic online reasoning tools.

Because Sam is right. Training our kids to make sense of evidence and to use it appropriately is too important to leave to hit and miss.

cross posted at glennwiebe.org

Glenn Wiebe is an education and technology consultant with 15 years' experience teaching history and social studies. He is a curriculum consultant for ESSDACK, an educational service center in Hutchinson, Kansas, blogs frequently at History Tech and maintains Social Studies Central, a repository of resources targeted at K-12 educators. Visit glennwiebe.org to learn more about his speaking and presentation on education technology, innovative instruction and social studies.

This year I am SUPER excited to teach a new class this year called "Engineering for Social Good". Click here for a short version of our class syllabus.

For each of the five projects I plan to facilitate in the course, I will post a similar blog post to share the successes and failures of the course as I modify it for future years.  

For our first project of the year, we are leveraging the "Drawdio", a device imagined and designed by Jay Silver. Click here and here to learn more about the Drawdio circuit and here to view Jay's incredible TED Talk. Click here to purchase your own Drawdio kit. 

After a brief  live demonstration of how the Drawdio circuit works, I provided the students with the following prompt:

In 1979, Mattel created a game called "Electronic Connection". Using your Drawdio circuit, develop a game, made in the the spiriting of Electronic Connection, that helps young learners (4-5 years old) improve their fine motor control and handwriting skills. We will then deliver the games to local Preschool and Kindergarten classrooms. Go! 

We finished prototypes today and I was absolutely blown away with the way the natural prototyping process happened seamlessly when the end user was clearly defined. The the low barrier to entry associated with this device and the "window" it opens to the subsequent learning of the interior electronics of the device make this activity one that acts as a perfect inquiry opening for this new course. 

See videos of two student prototypes in action below: 

cross posted at www.cyclesoflearning.com

Ramsey Musallam teaches science and robotics at Sonoma Academy in Santa Rosa, California, with the aim of fostering inquiry-based learning environments fueled by student curiosity. He presents widely on sparking student curiosity and teaching with technology. Musallam is a Google Certified Teacher, a YouTube Star Teacher, and a Leading Edge Certified Teacher. Watch his TED talk here and read his blog at www.cyclesoflearning.com.

"How would you get troops on a beach when there's a big coral reef in the way?" "If you were Eisenhower or Churchill and had the information they had what decisions would you make?" These are the type of questions students are confronted with when they take a digital field trip to the The National WWII Museum. The museum is known for problem-based, distance learning which sparks minds as it brings content to life and into the classroom from a state-of-the-art, onsite studio. 

The Museum is a dynamic educational resource. USA Today gave the Museum its top rank as one of the “Best Places to Learn U.S. Military History." Exhibitions and programs allow students from all backgrounds to explore the values and beliefs—the universal concepts—that Americans and their Allies embraced during World War II.

Schools can take advantage of four distance learning programs as follows:

Webinars

Students have the opportunity to interact with authors, historians, and Museum experts to explore a broad array of topics that bring WWII history to life. No special technology needed, thousands of students can connect to the Museum at once simply via their classroom computer to view live, interactive programs that immerse students in history. 

Webinars are free.

Electronic Field Trips

Electronic Field Trips are streamed directly into your classroom—no special technology required. Focusing on the national impact of World War II, take your students on a cross-country tour of historic sites while examining fascinating artifacts and exhibits at The National WWII Museum. Hosted by student reporters, Electronic Field Trips will help your students understand how the war affected young people just like them. Check out past and future Electronic Field Trips. 

Electronic field trips are free.

Skype in the Classroom

Classrooms across the world can interact with Museum experts and educators for short, dynamic virtual connections with Skype in the Classroom. This can serve as an introduction to an array of WWII topics and locations through the Museum. These programs are meant to be quick, not take your whole entire class period, and enhance the curriculum you're already teaching in the classroom.

Skype in the Classroom is free.

Virtual Field Trips

Interactive, fast-paced Virtual Field Trips are videoconferenced LIVE into classrooms. A museum educator guides students as they analyze maps, photographs, artifacts, posters, speeches, and songs as they explore the chronologies, strategies, motivations, and outcomes behind these fascinating chapters of WWII history. Sessions last one class period and include pre-and post-program curriculum materials.

Virtual Field Trips are $100 per session.

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.  

It actually is quite obvious that the Arts should be included in STEM education. The idea of STEAM brings out the skills of creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication that are so important in the work place. A look at the works of Leonardo da Vinci will attest to this! The very first time I heard the idea of integrating the Arts into STEM education was while watching a 2009 keynote made by Daniel Pink at the NECC  Conference in Washington DC… yes prior to ISTE Conferences!  

1. NPR Where Science Meets Art – Some exceptional Podcasts integrating Science and Art. Many of these titles will allow for student reflection and questions as they begin to see how the Arts and Science can be integrated.
2. Arts Edge – A fantastic resource from the Kennedy Center hosting numerous lessons that integrate Art into the curriculum.You will discover a focus  on ways to support innovative teaching with the arts, and meet changing trends in education and to accommodate the ever-evolving impact of technology in our lives. This amazing collection of free digital resources—including lesson plans, audio stories, video clips, and interactive online modules—has been streamlined for easier browsing and upgraded to leverage best practices in educational media and multimedia-supported
3. BabbleDabbleDo –  This is a site that allows students to explore and engage with their right brain. This is important in our tech saturated world. This site provides that creative angle that puts kids in that out of the box mode while exploring concepts in science, math, and engineering.  The site proclaims that the best part of creating is the process.And I truly I believe that EVERYONE IS CREATIVE.
4. STEM to STEAM -The STEM to STEAM initiative, championed by the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), is supported by teachers, researchers, policy makers, students, and business people from RISD and beyond.
5. Why Scientific Innovation Needs The Arts – Explore this wonderful article from the Guardian that explains the connection between science and the arts. Great read to support STEAM thinking in any educational setting.
6. OER Commons – Take a look at these results from a search I did for  STEAM based activities. There are some powerful lessons that bring the arts into the classroom. Since it is OER (Open Education Resources) it is free.
7. Teach Hub Technology and STEAM – Take a look at these possibilities for connecting standards, technology integration, and STEAM.
8. Edutopia STEAM Resources – One of the finest education sites brings STEAM to the forefront. Enjoy this engaging journey.  You will discover information, examples, and tools related to incorporating aspects of the arts, design, and the humanities into STEM-based school activities.
9. Odyssey of the Mind – This  international educational program provides creative problem-solving opportunities for students from kindergarten through college. Team members apply their creativity to solve problems.
10. Lemon Lime Adventures 50 STEAM Projects and Activities – Take some time to look through the various links on this page. You are bound to find some great possibilities that will fit your standards.
11. Autodesk Digital Steam Workshop – Digital STEAM projects are designed by Autodesk’s network of expert educators, designers and student alumni as exciting complements to core Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Art (STEAM) curriculum. Each project aligns with common core and national standards and delivers measurable learning while using free software.
12. National Gallery of Art  – You will find organized into thematic units, each grade-level-specific lesson plan focuses on a single work of art and can be executed within one to two class periods. These lessons meet the National Art Education Association (NAEA) Visual Arts curriculum standards
13. Exploratorium – Take a look at the entire site, but especially explore the Art related material.  In fact this link brings you to the Tinkering STudio. You will find lessons that allow you to connect with other subject areas including the STEM disciplines. You will get a new definition of exploring through the Exploratorium,
14. The Art Institute of Chicago – Explore these wonderful lessons that cover Science and the Arts. It just might have you and your students look at Art in a whole different way. Best of all you will discover some STEAM possibilities.
15. Lesson Plans and resources for Art Integration – This Edutopia Article has a rich assortment of lessons and resources to integrate Art into curricular areas including Math, Science, and Design. A great read that will lead to some wonderful opportunities.
16. CIESE Online – CIESE  (Center for Innovation and Science Education) sponsors and designs interdisciplinary projects that teachers throughout the world can use to enhance their curriculum through compelling use of the Internet.  Each project has a brief description and links to the National Science Standards and NCTM math standards it supports
17. Masterpieces to Math – A wonderful article that focuses on how to incorporate art in math. Learn how to use Art to teach fractions, decimals, and percent equivalents. You will look at Math in a whole new STEAMie way.
18. Space School Musical – Your students will enjoy joining teenager Hannah on a trip through the solar system in this ultra-cool edu-tainment “hip-hopera” that uses song and dance to introduce the planets, moons, asteroids and more. Educators can download the lyrics for students to learn and perform the routines for themselves or just play the videos in class. There are also links provided for more in-depth activities.
19. Cardboard Challenge – Not everything needs high tech and expensive resources. A lot can be done with a cardboard box and a lot of imagination. Check out this amazing challenge from the Imagine Foundation. Take a moment to watch the video. You and your students will want to be involved with this amazing low tech, high engagement possibility.
20. KinderArt – Discover Fine Art lessons as they apply to all different subject areas. Lessons are searchable by grade and subject. Some great ideas to integrate with.
21. Share Space Foundation – The ShareSpace Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring children’s passions for science, technology, engineering, arts and math by providing innovative, interactive educational tools to educators across the country.  ShareSpace has reached more than 250,000 children across the globe through strategic partnerships and the engaging Giant Mars Map™.
22. Scratch –  With Scratch, kids can program their own interactive stories, games, and animations — and share your creations with others in the online community. Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively . All of this is possible while essential skills for life in the 21st century are facilitated. Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is provided free of charge.
23. Teacher Vision Art and Math –Students will enjoy participating in math class with our art activities for teachers of any grade level, from elementary to high school.  You will find opportunities to mix numbers with creativity and art activities that your students will love. There are lessons for creating counting books, crafts that encourage measuring, geometry printables to color, sculpting activities, and much more!  Introduce new concepts or reinforce topics your students have already learned.
24. Eurekus – This is a site with STEAM powered discovery. Discover the many free lessons that bring the left brain world alive in the the right brain.
25. Left Brain Craft Brain – Discover this blog with great activities and possibilities to engage the whole brain in the engineering process. It is a self-proclaimed mega monster of STEAM posts.  You will find some of the coolest science, technology, engineering, art and math projects from some of the most creative bloggers out there.
26. What is STEAM ? – This is an amazing resource site from the Education Closet. here you will find some great lessons that are aligned to the standards of STEM and Art curriculum. Be sure to read the blogs, links, news, and research. Be sure to check out all the possibilities on this site by clicking the menu. You will even find a STEAM-based magazine.
27. The Stanford Design School – Get ready for some innovative lessons that include the design process. You will find an abundance of material and resources to bring innovation to your STEAM program.
28. National Association For Music Education – Take some time at this site. Explore the curriculum along with awesome teacher resources. This is a great site that might tune up some of that important STEAM education.
29. STEAM Art Lessons – Take a look at these wonderful STEAM based art lessons from an amazing elementary Art teacher. There are some wonderful ideas for bringing the curriculum together.
30. How To Smile – This is an amazing collecting of some of the best educational materials, learning activities, tools, and services. They are all designed especially for those who teach school-aged kids in activity-based settings. This site is sponsored by a group of science museums dedicated to bringing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) out of the academic cloister and into the wider world. This is a great place to Make STEM happen!
31. New York Times Lesson Plans – I include this because you will find a collection of amazing lessons that cross all areas. Best of all, they bring the creativity and innovation into these lessons which is the foundation for the arts.
32. Art in Action – Take a look at these mini Art lessons that allow students to get in that right brain frame of mind.
33. PBS STEM Collection – PBS Learning Media has great resources. Check them all out. This link brings you to the STEM Collection.
34. Project Pals – A great article that looks at STEM/STEAM possibilities in the world of PBL for all grade levels.
35. Learn It By Art – Take any subject… you can learn it by using Art. What might you find?
36. Fizzics Education – Learn how Art and the Design Process come together to make great lessons.
37. Four Skills From STEAM Education – Check out this 2019 article from Teach Thought on the benefits of providing a STEAM Education.
38. EGFI – This is an amazing site for some wonderful STEAM Resources. You will find lessons ready to get your students designing.
39. Instructables – Check out these 100 STEAM projects for kids.
40. Full STEAM Ahead – A great collection of resources and ideas on STEAM from Concordia University in Portland Oregon.
41. 36 Resources for STEM Project Based Learning – If you’re a teacher or  looking for ideas for STEM project-based learning activities, then you’ve come to the right place.
42. The STEM Laboratory – These 50+ STEM projects are sure to keep little scientists engaged, learning and well-prepared for their STEM-filled future.
43. A Guide for Women in STEM: Closing the Gender Gap - A guide from Master's in Data Science that provides information about the current gender and diversity gaps in STEM university studies and careers, reasons for those gaps, and strategies to help promote inclusivity in STEM-related industries.

cross-posted at 21centuryedtech.wordpress.com

Michael Gorman oversees one-to-one laptop programs and digital professional development for Southwest Allen County Schools near Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is a consultant for Discovery Education, ISTE, My Big Campus, and November Learning and is on the National Faculty for The Buck Institute for Education. His awards include district Teacher of the Year, Indiana STEM Educator of the Year and Microsoft’s 365 Global Education Hero. Read more at 21centuryedtech.wordpress.com.

Welcome to my first post of the New Year! In fact, the year starts out with two amazing conferences … FETC and then TCEA. I am on my way to one of my favorites, FETC which happens to be in Miami Beach, Florida this year. It will be back in Orlando in 2021.  Presently I am close to 30,000 feet in the air flying from Indiana to Florida. It is a perfect time to write a blog since the wifi is down, but my creativity is up. It provides a perfect time to address the idea of Creativity in education (one of those 4C’s). If you liked my last posts on Collaboration and Critical Thinking (click links), then you are sure to like this post. It is filled with thoughts on Creativity including “I can” statement(s), classroom attributes, and assessment rubrics. I hope you enjoy and find the time to pass this along via email or a tweet. Thanks for being one of my nearly 30,000 readers a month and growing (Spread the Word… it is encouraging). Remember you can follow me on Twitter at @mjgormans. I look forward to learning from you! Enjoy the read, and what I know will be a creative journey!

Note: I will be at FETC in Miami, Florida all week. I thought this would be a great post to start my coverage of an amazing conference. Creativity continues this week with a STEAM post (with lots of links) and thoughts from Keynote Dan Pink. If you are at the conference, feel free to look me up with a PM at Twitter (@mjgormans) or email (mjgormans@gmail.com). I would love to talk with you about amazing PD I can provide at your school or conference this year! Check out my Booking Page and please share and subscribe to this Blog. Now… let’s get creative!

Creativity: Facilitating and Assessing the 21st Century Skills in Education

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein

The idea of Creativity really is at the base of our culture. It seems it is one of those processes that machines still depend on humans to make happen. This idea of difficult machine reproduction with regards to Creativity, makes Creativity one of those growing skills for career opportunities. It seems that machines and automation have been able to replace so many services supplied by humans, but creativity is still one attribute that humans seem to have the upper hand on. It is for this reason that education must nurture and facilitate Creativity in students. A classroom that promotes Creativity puts students at the center of learning. Student inquiry is promoted and often used to engage and promote a passion for learning. Students are provided learning opportunities that promote problem solving that is often initiated by the students. In a Creative classroom culture, students are encouraged to think outside the box while connecting real world authenticity to important content standards. They are encouraged to use their creativity to deal with real world situations. Students’ thoughts and ideas are honored and perseverance through an iterative cycle is encouraged. In many ways, students become practitioners of real-world careers.

How does this happen? The teacher must be intentional and guide students. There still must be moments following student exploration where the teacher provides or facilitates explanation. Concurrently, teachers must make sure that their lessons go beyond Bloom’s remembering and understanding. This demands an elaboration that promotes connections and transfer of encouraging student Creativity!  Often, this practice can be seen in STEM and PBL classrooms. It is exciting to see students discuss, debate, question, and build as they conquer the standards.

Welcome to the resources! I think it is important to define and promote Creativity though its various attributes. It must be intentional with appropriate scaffolds in place. I hope you find the resources below helpful. Taking the journey toward student Creativity is a wonderful and rewarding journey for you and your students. Start out taking a few steps with a rubric, a student reflection, or a small lesson. Before you know it your students will take you the rest of the way.  Please enjoy the resources below and be sure to share with others!

Ten Reasons to Promote Creativity in the Classroom

• Provides students the opportunity to own the process and internalize their learning.
• Facilitates critical thinking by pushing students to look at and invent possibilities.
• Allows students to take risks that can support thinking that is “out of the box”
• Supports the design process that can be incorporated in all disciplines and supports STEM thinking.
• Encourages students to visualize their thinking and important concepts in content and connections between multiple content and real-world concepts.
• Allows for the progression from surface learning, to deeper learning, to a final transfer of learning that in return supports authentic and new understanding.
• Provides opportunity for unique, thoughtful, and powerful communication
• Supports possibility thinking and a growth mindset that comes up with hidden, original, and unique possibilities.
• Provides important avenues of collaboration that allow for active listening, persuasion, healthy discourse, multiple viewpoints, and needed empathy.
• Builds a balance between the logical and sequential thought processes, allowing for intellectual growth of the whole mind.

Ten Ways to Facilitate Student Creativity in the Classroom and School

• Intentionally go beyond remembering and understanding with Blooms (The standards often force teachers to get students ready for the test… which means we miss analyzing, applying, synthesizing, and most of all Creating.)
• Emphasize the verbs in the standards. (It is the verbs that allow students to do. When they are doing… Creativity can flow.)
• Provide students with a Creativity Thinking rubric. (Have them look at the rubric before an activity that demands Creativity, and once again when they are finished)
• Make assessment of Creativity an ongoing effort. (While the teacher can assess, have students assess themselves. Self assessment can be powerful)
• Concentrate on specific indicators in a rubric. (There are various indicators such as; thinking outside the box, risk taking, originality, questioning, empathy toward others, growth mindset, innovation, and design thinking. Concentrate on just one indicator while doing a lesson. There can even be an exit ticket reflection)
• Start a lesson out… with Creativity. ( You can turn Bloom’s upside down. Find out how having students Create can lead to analyzing, synthesizing, understanding, and remembering, while opening with some wonderful  engagement.)
• Post a Creative Thinking Poster in the room. (This poster could be a copy of a rubric or even a list of “I Can Statements”. Point it out before a creative thinking activity.
• Make Creativity part of your formative  and summative assessment.  (Move around the room, talk to groups and students, stop the whole group to make adjustments.)
• Find ways to bring a Makers’ Culture to the classroom. (So many schools are building a Makers Space. Perhaps we need to build a Makers’ Culture that happens in any space leading to Creativity and innovation.)
• Plan for a school wide emphasis. (A culture that builds Creativity is usually bigger then one classroom. Schools and classrooms that practice student owned/centered learning promote Creativity. Develop school-wide vocabulary, posters, and initiatives.)

Keep in mind that learning actually has three transitions. These include Surface Learning, Deeper Learning, and Transfer of Learning. They are all necessary if we are to engage students in authentic learning that provides real understanding. Surface Learning builds the foundation while the Deeper Learning provides rigor and important meta-cognition. When students begin to Transfer the Learning to experiences in the real world situations we begin to see Creativity become an important factor. This is a big reason for success that is found in PBL and STEM.

I have been mentioning rubrics and assessment tools through out this post. To me, these are essential in building that culture of Creativity in the classroom. I want to provide you with some great resources that will give your some powerful tools to assess the skill of Creativity.  Keep in mind that students can also self assess and journal using prompts from a Creativity Rubric.

Ten Resources to Help with Assessment and Facilitation of Creativity

Habits of Mind – I think this is an awesome place to help teachers facilitate and assess critical thinking and more. Check out the free resources page which even has some wonderful posters. One of my favorites is the rubrics found on this research page. Decide on spending some time because there are a lot of great resources.

PBLWorks – The number one place for PBL in the world is at PBLWorks. You may know it as the BUCK Institute or BIE. I am fortunate to be part of their National Faculty which is probably why I rank it as number one. I encourage you to visit their site for everything PBL.  This link brings you to the resource area where you will discover some amazing  rubrics. One provides for the idea of Creativity in a PBL Unit. You will find rubrics for grade bands K-2, 3-5, and 6-12. This really is a great place to start. You will need to sign up to be a member of PBLWorks. This is a wonderful idea, after-all it is free!

Microsoft Innovative Learning – This  website contains some powerful rubrics for assessing the 21st Century skills. The link will bring you to a PDF file with Critical Thinking rubrics you can use tomorrow for any grade level. Check out this two page document defining the 4 C’s and a movie giving you even more of an explanation.

New Tech School – This amazing PBL group of schools provide some wonderful Learning Rubrics in their free area.  Here you will find an interesting collection of rubrics that assesses student learning in multiple areas. These are sure to get you off and started.

AACU Creative Value Rubric – The VALUE rubrics were developed by teams of faculty experts representing colleges and universities across the United States through a process that examined many existing campus rubrics and related documents for each learning outcome and incorporated additional feedback from faculty.

Project Zero – The Creativity Module helps students develop their capacity to think creatively and to see the creativity embedded in things and ideas around them. Challenges of creativity are everywhere in daily life–wherever it is important to think of new ways of doing things, to look at things through new eyes, to go beyond conventional ways of thinking, to stretch beyond the obvious.

Destination Imagination – Destination Imagination (DI) is a volunteer-led nonprofit organization whose purpose is to inspire and equip students to become the next generation of innovators and leaders.

CRE8Iowa Instant Challenges – Great way to great Creative Energy flowing. Instant Challenges published by Students for a Creative Iowa are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Please provide appropriate credit if you share any of these Instant Challenges on your Web site or blog.

Imagination Foundation – This a wonderful site to find ideas and projects that students will enjoy as they turn on their Creativity.

Edutopia Creativity – Check out this section of Edutopia for some amazing articles to plant seeds of Creativity in you school or classroom. Enjoy the possibilities.

I Can Statements for Creativity

• I can practice originality by creating and generating my own ideas for any given situation or task.
• I can practice my own sense of curiosity while exploring, researching, and building.
• I can explain my own ideas and concepts and interpret new concepts I learn.
• I can analyze, extend, change, and assess my own ideas, and ideas from others for possibilities and accuracy.
• I can invite opportunities to explore, reflect, create, and rigorously come up with solutions.
• I can not only find answers, but also take my answers and create new questions.
• I can take risks and accept failure as I search for solutions and answers.
• I can practice empathy, understanding, and resolve in my working with others.
• I can use my visualization and imagination to think outside the box while integrating multiple possibilities and answers.
• I can use a design process to answer problems both simple and complex.

cross-posted at 21centuryedtech.wordpress.com

Michael Gorman oversees one-to-one laptop programs and digital professional development for Southwest Allen County Schools near Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is a consultant for Discovery Education, ISTE, My Big Campus, and November Learning and is on the National Faculty for The Buck Institute for Education. His awards include district Teacher of the Year, Indiana STEM Educator of the Year and Microsoft’s 365 Global Education Hero. Read more at 21centuryedtech.wordpress.com.

Digital Learning Resources for January 2020

Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Martin Luther King Day in January 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the day of service. Find out about the day and volunteer opportunities for you and your students. 

The History Channel explains the origin of the holiday and highlights its namesake with archival photos and more. 

The NEA offers activities and resources for grades K-5, 6-8 and 9-12. 

See 10 essential books about Martin Luther King Jr. from the Archive.

Digital Scavenger Hunt
Try a digital scavenger hunt created using Goose Chase EDU. Create teams and watch the fun begin.     

Random Team Maker
Type the names single-spaced with no formatting, first in Word, then paste into the random team maker site.  TIP: Make sure there's no space between names else the site picks that up as a name and creates too many groups.  

Cyber Patriot’s Competition
Do you have any students interested in hacking or cyber security? Introduce them to the Cyber Patriot’s competition, presented by Northrop Grumman Foundation.

February 2020 Upcoming Events:

Digital Learning Day
Get ready for Digital Learning Day February 27, 2020. 

Career & Technical Education Month  
This year ACTE and NASA HUNCH are hosting a student video challenge celebrating Career and Technical Education (CTE) and project-based learning programs. The Video Challenge Theme is Living and Working on the Moon and Beyond.  

cross posted at collaborationsdigitalandotherwise.weebly.com

Deborah Marshall is the Department Chair of Career & Technical Education and Lisa McKnight Ward is the librarian at Granby High School in Norfolk, Virginia. Both are Nationally Board Certified, former Teachers of the Year, who have taught multiple subjects including AP and IB courses. They have over a decade of experience collaborating on technology-based learning. Read more at collaborationsdigitalandotherwise.weebly.com/

I am excited and honored to be presenting at the Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC 2020) in Miami, Florida this January 14th through 17th.

I always look forward to an opportunity to see old friends, make new friends, share some ideas, and learn so many new things from others.

Below is a list of sessions I will be presenting at FETC 2020, along with any associated resources. Please feel free to join me for any of these sessions. I look forward to sharing, learning, and chatting with you!

My Sessions:

 TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2020

Holy Sheets! Google Sheets Activities for all Subjects

• Session Code: W060$
• Time: 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
• Location: 229 B - Miami Beach Convention Center
• Session Resources: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/sheets

Literacy Activities with Google Docs

• Session Code: W133$
• Time: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
• Location: 228 B - Miami Beach Convention Center
• Session Resources: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/docslit

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2020

Googley Activities and Tools for Elementary Students

• Session Code: W168$
• Time: 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM
• Location: 229 B - Miami Beach Convention Center
• Session Resources: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/primarygoog

Awesome Uses for Google Drawings in Your Classroom

• Session Code: SB02
• Time: 1:00 PM - 1:30 PM
• Location: Expo Hall Booth 4600 Skill Builder Theater
• Session Resources: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/drawings

Google Tools for Struggling Students

• Session Code: C057
• Time: 2:00 PM - 2:40 PM
• Location: 228 B - Miami Beach Convention Center
• Session Resources: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/sped

 THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 2020

Applied Digital Skills: Google's Tech Skills Curriculum for all Subjects

• Session Code: W206$
• Time: 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM
• Location: 240-241 - Miami Beach Convention Center
• Session Resources: http://bit.ly/appdigskills

Hipster Google: Tools You Probably Never Heard Of

• Session Code: M010
• Time: 12:00 PM - 12:40 PM
• Location: Grand Ball Room C - Miami Beach Convention Center
• Session Resources: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/hipster

Fantastic Feedback Tools for Google Docs

• Session Code: C252
• Time: 2:00 PM - 2:40 PM
• Location: 228 B - Miami Beach Convention Center
• Session Resources: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/docsfeedback

Beyond the Slideshow: Unleashing Student Creativity With Google Slides

• Session Code: C323
• Time: 4:00 PM - 4:40 PM
• Location: 244-245 - Miami Beach Convention Center
• Session Resources: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/slides

 FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020

360 Degree Learning with Google Tour Creator

• Session Code: W239$
• Time: 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM
• Location: 231 - Miami Beach Convention Center
• Session Resources: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/tourcreator

The Bionic Educator

• Session Code: C372
• Time: 11:00 AM - 11:40 AM
• Location: 206 - Miami Beach Convention Center
• Session Resources: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/bionic

Connect with Me

I would love to stay connected with you after the conference. Please feel free to connect with me in any of the ways listed below:

• Email: ericcurts@gmail.com
• Twitter: @ericcurts
• YouTube: www.youtube.com/ericcurts
• Website: www.controlaltachieve.com

cross posted at www.controlaltachieve.com

Eric Curts is an education trainer and consultant with over 20 years' experience throughout the U.S. He is an authorized Google Education Trainer and a Google Certified Innovator. Read his blog at www.controlaltachieve.com and follow him on Google+ and @ericcurts on Twitter.

For the past several years I’ve made an attempt to make some bold predictions on the future of technology and its impact in schools and society. They range from semi-realistic to too-silly-to-be-true, but ironically, some do come true. Before I post my list for 2020, it’s always good to look back and judge how I did. After all, the internet never forgets, so I might as well own my mistakes.

Prediction: Virtual Reality takes fright…er….flight in the classroom

Outcome: Getting close

While some would say this post is a bit of a softball toss considering VR has been around for more than a decade, recent explosions in inexpensive hardware has made it much more attainable. I still think we are only scratching the surface of this prediction and will be interested to see how it progresses in 2020.

Prediction: The Universal Translator will make learning a foreign language obsolete

Outcome: No lo creo (translation: I don’t think so)

Like most new things in tech, the first generations of these translators are still pretty awful. I don’t think the foreign language department or language immersion schools have much to worry about…yet. However, my guess is people that worked for Blockbuster thought similar things about Netflix and Redbox….and you see how that ended up.  Not very bueno.

Prediction: Alexa will accidentally burn down someone’s house

Outcome: Nailed it…unfortunately

Yes, this was a strange and morbid prediction loosely based on my story from the previous year of “When Smart Homes Attack“. However, about 2 months after I posted this, a retired firefighter actually returned to his home and found that his 3rd gen Echo Dot had set ablaze. While this wasn’t exactly what I predicted (my thought would be that some sort of stove would turn on by accident), it does raise awareness of the power of AI as we put it into our homes.

Prediction: Netflix will launch an EDU Version of its service

Outcome: Still out of service

While many other video streaming companies are out there vying for clicks and views, the major player in paid video streaming is still not taking my calls or emails to launch NetflixEDU. Sounds like a wasted opportunity to me or more than likely a way to avoid major copyright infringement by them. Some how, it has to work though…

Prediction: Restaurants will post non-device zones similar to non-smoking areas

Outcome: Going unplugged is trending

My blurry pic at a recent restaurant banning phones

It’s becoming more and more of a status symbol for fancy restaurants to block and ban cell phones to the supposed joy of patrons. However, it’s not just fancy restaurants doing this as I snapped this quick pic of a BBQ joint outside of Ft. Worth over the holidays. (blurry because as I took out my phone, someone yelled at me)

Prediction: Someone will write a blog/paper using only predictive text

Outcome: It has been predicted

This one was definitely silly, but I thought I would put it out there in the universe and even tried to write a sentence in predictive text. I will say, that my Gmail is getting smarter and smarter at completing my sentences for me (at what cost? who knows…) but we are still a few years off (maybe?) at this happening over an entire blog post. Yes there are tons of social media bots out there doing this to manipulate us daily (reminder folks, it’s 2020 – election time), but not a blog post. However, someone at the New Yorker took my idea an ran with it in this October 2019 article titled “The Next Word“. Close enough for a win for me!

Prediction: A couple will get married over Facetime

Outcome: Still illegal, but not for long

In doing some more digging around this prediction, technically it is possible to have a proxy marriage and Facetime could facilitate that. However, that still hasn’t happened. That said, it is interesting that there are a WIDE variety of Facetime marriage counselors out there…which is interesting.

Prediction: There will be a FortniteEDU for schools

Outcome: Won the Battle Royale

I might have cheated on this one a tad as I know Mike Washburn was working on this behind the scenes. I chatted with him a bit last month while being interviewed on his recent OnEducation podcast and while we didn’t bring the topic up on air, he mentioned some recent developments on this front.  In December he posted a link on his twitter account (pic below) to Epic Games reaching hosting an Interactive 3D contest for teachers with likely more ideas to come.

Prediction: A SMART toilet will save someone’s life

Outcome: Not fully flushed-out yet

I’m a CES nerd, so when I saw these trending last year, I thought there might be a chance someone would buy one and have it save their life via early detection.  As of this writing, it hasn’t happened yet that I can find, but someone did write just a few weeks after my prediction about the future of these devices and our health. This prediction isn’t totally down the toilet yet(although my puns are starting to stink).

Prediction: LearnFestATX will again break the rules when it comes to a conference

Outcome: It was a game-changer (and ender)

LearnFestATX Dueling Keynote – Ann Kozma vs. Matt Joseph

Little did I know when I wrote that post that it would also mark the end of my 13-year tenure with Eanes ISD. However, we did do some pretty epic things to finish out the event including the still-never-attempted “Dueling Keynotes” using silent disco headphones. What a great way to end my run in the district and kick off the #NextChapter in my career as speaker/consultant. I’ll miss that event and iPadpalooza that came before it, but predict there might be other exciting events to lead in my near future…..stay tuned. 

Prediction: Robotics enter mainstream curriculum

Outcome: We will See-3PO if it happens

I think this ground swell is continuing to grow and we’ll see more and more examples of teachers using inventive ways to use coding and robotics to showcase student learning. I’ve been lucky to advise on one of the companies (Trashbots) and have seen them really work hard at seamlessly integrating STEM into mainstream curriculum without a ‘heavy lift’ for classroom teachers. I’m excited to see where the future of this ends up in our schools.

Prediction: THIS will be the year my children’s book series actually gets published

Outcome: Progress, just not published

I predicted this for 3 years and finally started down the path to production. By soliciting the help of best friend, fellow educator and amazing artist Chris Parker (@kreyus), I might have finally overcome the final roadblock holding this project back. Hoping for a summer launch of this new series as well as…wait….don’t want to give too much away. 

So there you have it. Overall, 2019 wasn’t a bad year for my predictions although there were some surprises. I’ve got some ideas brewing for 2020 and will have those up in the next week but here’s a hint: It’s time to be BOLD.

cross-posted at https://hookedoninnovation.com

Carl Hooker has been a part of a strong educational shift with technology integration since becoming an educator. As Director of Innovation & Digital Learning at Eanes ISD, he has helped spearhead the LEAP program, which put one-to-one iPads in the hands of all K-12 students in his 8000-student district. He is also the founder of “iPadpalooza”- a three-day “learning festival” held in Austin annually. He's also the author of the six-book series titled Mobile Learning Mindset, a guide for teachers, administrators, parents and others to support and embrace mobile learning in our schools. Read more at Hooked on Innovation.

The majority of our students use technology daily to learn and share their voice, creativity, ideas, and passion with the world! When we integrate technology effectively into the curriculum students discover how to use technology to problem solve, create, and better their future and world. Before students embark on any digital project, you need to find the right tools. Below are some websites, blogs, and Twitter accounts where you can find ways to integrate technology effectively using free web tools and apps.

Places to Find the Right Tool!

*Edshelf is an amazing search engine for teachers to find the right web tools and apps to meet their needs. Filter by price, platform, subject, age, and category. No registration is required, but if you register then you can save your favorite web tools and apps to a virtual shelf.

*Common Sense is also a search engine for education tools and apps with ratings and reviews.

*You can also check out the various tools and apps teachers have created in their Digital Bloom’s graphics. This post here has 20 of these visuals.

*In addition to doing a search for a type of project (comics, poster, games, infographics, Math, etc.) on TeacherRebootCamp or ShellyTerrell.com, you can search for teacher recommended web tools and apps on these blogs/websites/Twitter accounts:

• Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day
• Class Tech Tips
• Ditch That Textbook
• Free Tech for Teachers
• Nik Peachey
• Technology Tidbits

cross posted at teacherrebootcamp.com

Shelly Terrell is a Technology and Computer teacher, education consultant, and author of books including Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom. Read more at teacherrebootcamp.com.

Many people ask me how I keep up with the latest technology trends and find so many free resources to share on Twitter (@ShellTerrell) and on this blog. Hashtags, text starting with a # sign (#word), are the key to discovering amazing education tools and apps and finding examples of how teachers use these tools with their students. Below are awesome hashtags to explore on Twitter related to education technology.

Top Education Technology #Hashtags

Just click on any of the hashtags to discover the latest resources on Twitter. You don’t need a Twitter account to explore the resources.

• #Edtech
• #Elearning
• #Edchat
• #Mlearning
• #STEM
• #STEAM
• #Coding
• #GsuiteEdu
• #GoogleEdu
• #AssitiveTech
• #Edtools
• #Edapps
• #AugmentedReality
• #VirtualReality
• #VR
• #AR

cross posted at teacherrebootcamp.com

Shelly Terrell is a Technology and Computer teacher, education consultant, and author of books including Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom. Read more at teacherrebootcamp.com.

More important than the learning that transpires in our classrooms is the learning we inspire beyond our classroom walls. One way to motivate students to continue using the knowledge acquired in our classes is to set up a virtual learning community. The free web tools below help teachers create a safe online class where students can access learning materials, post their work, and comment on the works of others. These platforms are online and accessible 24 hours, 7 days a week on multiple devices (computers, tablets, mobile devices and Chromebooks). Virtual learning communities enable every student to share their thoughts, ideas, and creativity with their peers in multiple formats, such as text, video, audio, and embedded media. Students are motivated to share more when they see feedback from their classmates, teachers, and parents.

Collaborative Discussion Tools

Flipgrid is a video response tool and app designed for schools. Students contribute a short video response to a video discussion prompt posted and can respond to others. Students can decorate their selfie videos with stickers and quickly generate QR codes for others to scan and view their videos. Flipgrid has tons of other features students and teachers love, such as accessibility with the Immersive Reader tool and the ability to create Augmented Reality videos.

Parlay Ideas is a free platform where teachers create discussion prompts with embedded materials that students review, add a response, and respond to their peers’ ideas. The free version allows teachers to set up 6 roundtable discussions. What I love about this tool is the ability for teachers to quickly add content and questions suggested by the platform.

LinoIt and Padlet are favorites among teachers and students. Teachers create a web wall where they can post questions, pdfs, files, audio, video, and images for students to quickly access on any device by clicking a url or scanning a QR code. Students post a response with different colored sticky notes. Students can share videos, pdfs, text, photos, emojis, and images. Padlet allows a limited amount of walls with the free version.

NowComment is a free tool students and teachers register for to engage in rich discussion over any uploaded document. Any sentence, paragraph, image, or video can have multiple conversations.

Hypothes.is is a tool that requires a free registration. Students highlight and discuss parts of a website, respond to peers, and vote up peer responses they like.

Active Textbook is a free iOS, Google Play, and Microsoft app with a variety of features teachers can use to create an engaging reading experience. Teachers add interactive elements such as discussion threads to existing books or documents.

Backchannel Chat allows teachers to control all aspects of an online discussion, such as removing messages, preventing posts, or pacing the discussion. Students join with a code.

To thank you for your sharing, friendship and support over the years I am sharing free tips, learning resources, web tools and apps for 25 days in my Digital December STEM Advent Calendar.

cross posted at teacherrebootcamp.com

Shelly Terrell is a Technology and Computer teacher, education consultant, and author of books including Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom. Read more at teacherrebootcamp.com.