Challenge 7: Chrome

I have been using Chrome as my web browser for quite some time now.  I am continually impressed with the number of extensions that make my time spent on the computer simplified.  However, the sheer number of extensions can be overwhelming!  I appreciate that within Chrome everything I am working on is saved.  My students have been pleasantly surprised by this too, and are relieved to know saving is no longer a step they have to remember.

A few noteworthy extensions for Chrome are:

Speakit- it will read websites to students

One-click Timer- Visual for students while they work

Skim-it- shortens text into a summary (useful for students who are checking to see if a resource is what they think it is)

Smart QR code Generator- QR codes are a great way to give students access to information without needing a url

Google has done a wonderful job of integrating everything I need and use in one place.  

Challenge 6: Add-ons

Today, I explored many of the add-ons and extensions available within Google Docs, Sheets, and Forms.  I have added a few that I feel will be very helpful in the classroom.  There are so many add-ons to choose from.  The trick is to locate those which are easy and fairly intuitive, so as to not overwhelm your students.

The first add-on I chose was EasyBib.  EasyBib will be a helpful tool for my students when it comes to citing their resources.  I have been working really hard on teaching my students how to be good digital citizens.  I require students to give credit where credit is due and share the importance of this with them.  With a tool like EasyBib citations become much easier.  Students don’t have to search for all the information needed for a proper citation.  

The second add-on I will use is Kaizena.  This add-on allows you to add voice comments and links that will be helpful during the revision and editing steps of the writing process.  I find that my students like to hear recordings rather than read the comments I leave them.  It is another great way for me to interact with my students and provide meaningful feedback on their work.

The third add-on me students will use is Thesaurus.  In fourth grade, students need to start using more descriptive words in their writing.  I encourage them to try at least four new words during a writing assignment.  Having a built in thesaurus will make this suggestion easily achievable.  

Finally, I will use the Translate add-on when it is necessary to communicate to parents and students in another language.  I don’t always have time to send something off to translation services.

Challenge #7 Chrome

Chrome Selfie

Challenge #7 Chrome

Ironically, this post begins with reflecting on my recent MIE training. I have just finished a (voluntary) two day Microsoft in Education (MIE) PD. For two days I Binged and navigated a browser other than Chrome.  This was accomplished while traversing a different operating system (Windows 8.1 long time no see!) through an unfamiliar device (Microsoft Surface). 

During the last two days my mind kept going back to the Chrome Challenge and working through Unit 9: Teach Students Online Skills . The MIE training gave me a real chance to experience working around technology challenges in a safe environment. This is how my own classroom should be everyday.

Because of the Challenge and my MIE PD I was really able to think about the advantages of Chrome. The support of the Google Community is free, more importantly: easily accessible and available for ALL regardless of devices and browsers.  Chrome/Google works to function as a universal platform that embraces BYOD.  The price point of “free” for add-ons & productivity tools helps narrow the digital divide.

As a learner and an educator I want my time spent on constructing knowledge, creating and sharing. Chrome/Google allows for this by connecting your curated content within the framework of Google’s productivity tools.  I downloaded the additional resources on this challenge page for future instruction.  I am thinking some kind of webquest or scavenger hunt can be created out of the slides. Or even just share the slides and see what kids come up with on their own. 

I like Microsoft products.  I still use them.  They are the workhorses that built the world we live in today.  The trainers at MIE were great and very helpful.  We laughed and learned together.  I connected with friends and made a new one.  After chatting she joined GEG:Oregon and signed up for Camp Chromebook...

Challenge 6: Add Ons

Challenge 6: Add Ons

So I played with some add ons. 

Some great add-ons that I can use with docs:

• Highlight Tool--this tool would allow someone to highlight certain parts of a text in a variety of colors. The colors are coded. Later the different colors can be imported onto a different document so the same colors go together. So, if students color coded an essay to show specific items or categories they need to have in their assignment, such as description of a character as being purple, the add on then puts all the purple colored highlighting together in the new document. This would be great when doing a text analysis or finding evidence to support their thinking. They could color code, and then have a handy list of all the color codes together!
• Translate--I could send home emails in home languages. (Too bad not all languages are there.)
• Mind Meister--It takes my writing and creates a mind map. 

I found some (that I have talked about before) that would be great with forms: 

• Form Notification-I can get email notifications when people submit a form. (No more lurking!)
• Choice Eliminator-This basically makes it impossible for someone to duplicate a response. I could use this for: 
• project topics--students are unable to pick the same topic.
• setting up meetings--parents can book appointments, but can't pick times that have already taken by other families. (Maybe for IEP meetings?)

I found some for sheets:

• Email range--I can send out emails straight from a sheet. This would be great as I use google forms (and the resulting sheets) to get information from teachers on how my students are doing in class/how I can help them. This can then be sent from parents--without the cutting/pasting that I had to do before. 
• Add reminders--This could send out emails to those listed in the email on a specified date. I love the idea of this (sends the emails out automatically), but when I sent an example to myself, it just came as a copy of the spreadsheet--I didn't like the formatting. I don't know if I would use this a lot.

Challenge #6 Add-Ons

I felt as though I was in a paint store with thousands of color swatches to choose from. I have dabbled with extensions yet I still am amazed at what creations are available for FREE!  During this task I downloaded many Add-ons but I will focus on the ones used for the Challenge.

I created a google form for student conferences:

This is actually a revision of a form I created last year but it needed tweaking and the Add-ons helped.  Add-ons for this form included:

Choice Eliminator - to avoid double booking of a time slot - Excellent!
Form Notifications - simultaneously notifying the parent and myself of the appointment
Color Pick Eye Dropper - for easy color customization
Awesome Screenshot  -  the jury is still out on this one I need to work with it more...

The challenges were in configuring the form and tweaking the graphics but my beautiful visual customization of the form is not yet supported in gmail (ironic), you just get the simple draft version. Pretty Form is viewable via a link or embedded in another application.  

I enjoyed the process and satisfaction of finishing the form, its functionality and the creativity of the visuals.  I want to do more such as see how I can link to my calendar.  In Youtubing for tutorials I found an Add-On called Online Rubric it may be a good resource.  Last year we created rubrics as a class.  An aha that came out from the kids was the lack of graphics on rubrics. They added emojis, colored backgrounds, different fonts etc. They discussed how this made the rubric more interesting and they were definitely more engaged.  So I see a big benefit in learning about the aesthetics of forms & docs. 

So now I have a form for scheduling conferences without using paper!  With a simple email parents can schedule their time!  I get a spread sheet of appointments booked.  Trees, time and lots of energy is saved. Now I just need to find a reminder extension. On a side note I noticed I used my Chromebook & my iMac together to get the work done. Double monitors are in my future...

Challenge 14: Kahoot!

Challenge 14: Kahoot!

I really enjoyed making a quiz for my students. I created a quiz about real-life math mistakes based on pictures I found on the internet. I really liked Kahoot because it was easy to set up for me, and my students would be able to play from their phones or Ipads. It would also be good for students to compete against each other, possibly for prizes? 
Some things that I think would make this extra engaging:

• embedding videos and pictures so my students don't need to read so much.
• the fact that the students can see how each other are doing
• it is fun, like a game.

I think that this would be great for PD with staff. It would also be great to use to support watching a video--students could watch for a couple of minutes, and then have to answer questions to make sure they are getting what is going on in the video, and paying attention. Super cool site!

Challenge 13: Instagram

Challenge 13: Instagram

I started working with Instagram tonight. It was a lot more fun than the work I was doing with Google. I created an account, and posted a picture of my daughters on it. (Who can resist kid pictures?) It can be found at instagram.com/msannayork. 

I think a back-to-school prompt for my social studies class would be something where students have do document at least 3 different places they went over the summer via pictures (hopefully ones they took themselves), and then link them to the physical places. They would then have to link those experiences to something social studies related, such as a map of how they got there, roads they took to get there, how it had to do with their community, etc. (I want to leave it vague so students have some choice and freedom to do something they feel comfortable with.)

I also think a great back-to-school activity for math class is to take pictures of how math relates to them in their lives--fractions, shapes, music, etc. 

Finally, for those students that are working on transition goals related to transportation/taking the bus, they could take pictures of locations of where they get off/on the bus.

Challenge 7: Chrome

Challenge 7: Chrome

Okay, so I started this challenge and I really don't think I did the right thing. I started working through the "fundamentals training" and then working on some of the "advanced training" (especially as part of the advanced google apps for education training class. 

I got way too into this. There is a lot of information in the fundamentals and advanced training! I am currently done with 7/13 of the fundamental units, and 2/9 of the advanced units. 

On reflection, I am way overwhelmed with what I have learned. I think that it is something that is going to come out over the course of the school year. I really like the way that forms can provide differentiation--I see this working very well for my classes, as my students are all over the place skill-wise. I can help students work on the skills they need to work on individually, and can create a "choose your own adventure" task in both my social studies, math, support classes, and working with student as they work on their transition goals.

To do this, I will need to spend some time finding some good content that works well for my students--that isn't too belittling, but also gets at their skill sets.

These lessons also made me think about my task working with juniors and seniors as they work through their transition goals. I want to create some sort of file for each student that provides them a space online to create a portfolio of work--getting information on work goals, educational goals, and independent living goals. It would also have a copy of their resume, cover letter, essays and applications to help them get on their way. I would need to differentiate these files to help students work at their own levels.

I also am starting to think about resources that I can use based on what I learned with staff. We (the sped staff) are going to do a professional development in August. I would love to use some of the things that I learned to help with the PD.

• I started working on a google doc with links in it for our department to use to prepare for the PD.
• Creating a form to test their knowledge at the end.
• A questionnaire to see what the whole staff would like more training about.
• Creating a google doc with resources for staff to use through the year. 

Again, this wasn't what challenge 7 was supposed to be. I don't know if this should be one of the "Arts and Crafts" challenges?

Challenge 10: Google Forms

Challenge 10: Google Forms

I have used Google Forms before. I have used them to do things both in and out of school. I have used them for surveys for both students and other staff, as well as tracking for behavior. 

What I learned during this challenge was about add-ons that can enhance my form and some of the advanced options we can use. I spent a lot of time watching the related videos about the advanced options and add-ons that we can use to make the forms more efficient and give me more flexibility in how to use them. Some that seemed to be really helpful and have a lot of potential for use later:

• form notifications-I can have emails sent to me when a certain number of responses are submitted (in the form that I made, since I want to know when parents have sent this into me, I made the number 1, but it can be higher)
• choice eliminator-This add on allows respondents to pick options that haven't already been picked. The example that was given was when students are asked to submit their preferences via forms for a project topic, and you don't want duplicate topics to be picked. This app will eliminate the option once it has been selected.
• form values-you create a spreadsheet that has been filed out with whatever things you want--a list of all of your 6th period students, for example--and then allows you to put those values into a multiple choice list in the form, for example, as many times as you want. 

I think I still struggle how to have these forms output info. I would love it if I could get data to come out in someway that isn't a spread sheet, but that is okay. I can figure that out later.

I am planning on using forms for the following: getting data from parents and students. I have converted a questionnaire that I was going to send to parents before school started into a google form (if parents would rather submit it that way), and another that I was going to send to get information about when we could have student meetings. 

There is another add-on that I need to play with that would also allow forms to become a quiz. I have to play with that a little.

Challenge 15: Twitter

Challenge 15: Twitter

So I decided to start with Twitter. I created my account and set up my profile. It was very shocking that as soon as I did this, two of my former students popped up as people to follow. 

I then started playing. I have have started following a colleague, and a bunch of teachers/teaching topics, such as @educationweek, @mysteryskype, @ncte and more. 

It was really easy to set everything up--I set up my account easily. I was shocked by the groups that were on the web (NCTE, NCSS, etc.), but as a special education teacher, I couldn't find any national organization that works in this area. I wonder why?

I found some really cool things that I want to use in the next year. The most awesome thing I found while searching on twitter was Mystery Skype. I basically find another classroom or teacher via twitter or skype and my class asks questions to find out an answer the other class has. The big example was finding out where the other class is located by asking questions of the other class. I found this to be really exciting. But I am having problem getting more information about it. I am taking a break right now from this and writing this post. 

I would use twitter in a variety of ways based on what I have read so far: I can see this as a reminder tool for parents and teachers to let them know about upcoming due dates or events, a communication tool with parents--especially as we work on helping the students get ready for post-secondary goals and sending out resources to parents, and having students sending me info or short homework assignments. Some assignments that I might have students do in the future with twitter:

• pictures/descriptions of real life math examples
• when watching events (like a debate), students have to tweet their questions/reactions.
• haiku poems. I don't know if that would fit into 140 characters...
• I was thinking about having the students create advocacy campaigns related to things they see that need to be fixed, and it would be great to get this information out there and possibly as a way to contact their senator, representative, or other elected officials who are on twitter.