Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Wrapping Up: Archiving Google Classroom

With the school year quickly coming to a close, it is time to start cleaning the clutter in your Google Classroom and prepping for next year. While you could potentially remove all of your students from Google Classroom and re-use your class for next year, I would recommend an alternative:

Archive your class and re-use your posts.

Archiving a class will remove your class from view (there is an "Archived Classes" menu option to view the classes you have chosen to archive). It will also make the class inactive so students can no longer edit assignments and share posts.

For next year, you can quickly create a new Google Classroom for your students to join, and you can re-use your old posts, even from classes you have archived.

Check out the brief video tutorial below to learn how to archive your classes and re-use your posts.


Thursday, May 17, 2018

Putting the Fun in Formative Assessment

"Clear your desks and take out a No. 2 pencil!" You can probably hear the groans and imagine the dread coming from your students as you announce the quiz you are about to distribute. Assessing students is important work as it helps to inform instruction, but believe it or not, formative assessment can be fun, especially when you make it a game. There are dozens of digital tools you can use to assess what your students have learned, most of which will provide you with timely data. Some of my favorites are listed below.

Kahoot!
Kahoot is a Web-based platform for delivering formative assessments that engage students by making a competitive game out of a teacher's assessment questions. Students are awarded points for speed and accuracy. Teachers can create an assessment at Kahoot.com Students can enter the PIN for the teacher's assessment at Kahoot.it. In "Challenge" mode, teachers can assign Kahoots! for homework and students can play Kahoot! on a mobile device.

Learn More:

Quizizz
Similar to Kahoot!, Quizizz allows teachers to create game-based quizzes that reward students for speed and accuracy. Unlike Kahoot!, Quizizz offers a student-paced "homework" mode that works on a computer or any device. Visit Quizizz.com to learn more.

Learn More:

Quizlet
Quizlet allows teachers to create and share their own study sets (think flashcards) or search for sets already made by other Quizlet users. Students can turn a teacher's study set into flashcards, games, and quizzes. For whole-group instruction, teachers can use Quizlet Live turns their study sets into a collaborative game. Students must work together to provide a correct answer as each student does NOT have the same answer choices.

Learn More:

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Stay Curious: Summer Professional Development from the Instructional Technology Team

With the school year winding down, we are hopeful that you will stay curious during the summer and continue your professional learning. The Instructional Technology Summer Professional Development offerings are now open for registration on My Learning Plan
  • To easily find the workshops that are being offered, log-in to MLP and search for S18
  • The deadline for registration is June 8th. If there is an overwhelming demand for particular workshops, we will consider scheduling more sessions. 
  • All Instructional Technology workshops are scheduled on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, from 9:00 - 11:30 at the High School (check MLP for room assignments). 
  • There are also several online offerings that will not require any face-to-face meetings. 
  • Please remember to bring your laptop to all workshops.
  • All summer Instructional Technology workshops including online classes are eligible for reimbursement at the new teacher rate of $30/hour.
As always, it is important that you check your email account regularly throughout the summer. Any cancellations, rescheduling, or location changes for workshops will be done through email notification. If you find that you cannot attend a class for which you have registered, use MyLearningPlan to cancel (drop) the workshop.

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Telling Stories with Maps

When I was a kid, my father successfully drove us up and down the Eastern Sea Board to family vacation destinations with nothing more than a TripTik from AAA and the frequent prodding of my mother, "Bob, pull over!" I have to confess...I live and die by the Waze and Google Maps apps on my phone, even for driving around Camillus. Maps are great for helping us get from here to there. In the classroom, however, maps can be a powerful tool for telling stories as they provide context for historical events, literary narratives, environmental phenomena, and cultural exhibits. Fortunately, there are several easy-to-use instructional technology tools to support student mapping activities. Some of my favorites are listed below.

Google MyMaps
Google MyMaps are part of the G Suite platform and can be created directly within Google Drive. Students can search for specific locations and add them to their map. Location descriptions can be edited with custom text, images, and links for students to demonstrate learning. Further, MyMaps, like other Google tools, are collaborative and can be shared just like any other Google file. But wait, there's more...Google MyMaps can be exported to a .KML format, which means that they can be imported into Google Earth for a custom tour.


Learn More:

Google Tour Builder

Google Tour Builder allows users to build a location-based tour much the same way they would build a slideshow. It lets you search and select locations, add in photos, text, and video, share the creation and view it in Google Earth. Google Tour Builder provides users with an easy-to-use template for searching for a location, dropping a placemark, and telling a story with text and images.

Learn More:

    StoryMap JS

    StoryMap JS is another free tool from the developers at Northwestern University's Knight Lab to help you tell stories on the web that highlight the locations of a series of events. Users can place markers on a map and add text or media on a series of slides to tell their stories.




    Learn More:

    Check out a StoryMap I created of my recent trip to San Francisco