When using the class sets of Chromebooks or iPads it can be hard to get links out to your students. You can send them a document using Doctopus or post links on a webpage, but sometimes you find something in the middle of class and you need a quick way to send out a link. Goo.gl is the answer. You can go to the goo.gl website and paste in a link to the web address you want to shorten.
To make things even simpler, you can download the goo.gl shortener Chrome Extension which will show up right next to your Omnibox. Then, all you have to do is be on whatever website you want to share, click the extension, and it will give you the short URL. This short URL is much easier to write up on the board to share with students. (Just be careful with some characters such as a capital i and lowercase l. You can always click the link again to get a different short URL that is easier to read.)
Or, you can get a QR code which you can project or you can copy (Control C) and paste (Control V) it onto a document.
This should help you share links with students and get students to the right spot much quicker.
Leading up to spring break, I was so looking forward to some time off. I had so many things I needed to work on - conference presentations, applications, cleaning, errands, etc. I kept telling myself I'd get it done over break. Soon, my list was a mile long and now that I'm back at work, I only got about half way through it. Well, maybe only a third of the way through it.... Spring break is always too short!
Work in Progress - Just need the sixth side "Mod Podged" on.
On the last day of school before spring break, I saw a tweet for a blog post called "Roll the Dice on QR Codes" by Krissy Venosdale. Krissy made QR code dice which linked to six different Google presentation slides. So with one die, you can change and edit the Google presentation at any time to change up the dice. The uses for this are endless! Check out her blog for more information and great ideas.
The examples Krissy listed seemed to be best suited for elementary school students. But I can imagine using this in my high school science classroom in so many different ways. I can use it as a unit review and have six different questions or topics for students to review. The dice can be used to give out articles for students to read and then practice writing arguments with claims and evidence. My students could use the dice to roll for assignment or project topics, and then get into a group with other students who rolled the same topic. And the best part, once making the dice, you can use them for all these different activities. After seeing this blog post, I knew I had another project that I had to get done over spring break! First, I created six different Google Presentations. But I didn't want students to see the entire presentation page when they scanned the QR code, I just wanted them to go straight to the presentation in "play" mode. So I chose to publish the slideshow.
Then I needed to make the QR codes. I used goo.gl to do this.
I was then able to paste the QR codes into a table on a Word doc. I printed them out on cardstock, and then used Matte Mod Podge with a foam brush to adhere them to 1.5" wooden blocks. The Mod Podge works really well to adhere and protect the paper so they can be used for years in the future.
Here's a video I found with instructions on how to use Mod Podge to adhere paper to wood.
I am so excited to use these with my students! Thanks Krissy for sharing such a great idea! I am sure there are a ton of creative uses for these QR blocks that I haven't even thought of. If you have any cool ideas on how to use these with students, please share in the comments.
When I was in high school, doing video projects were always such a big production. They took lots of time, required lots of different equipment, and most projects required students to meet and work with their groups after school and off campus. And the videos were poorly edited, if at all. With advances in technology, most students now have amazing video cameras and editing software on their cell phones. With the iMovie iOS app, students can quickly and easily make high quality videos to show what they know. They can film people acting things out or can find images online to include into their videos. iMovie is easy to use, and when I first introduce it to my classes, they can create a high quality video in about five 50 minute class periods. After learning how to use iMovie, they can do this in a much shorter amount of time. Here is a set of instructions that I have written up for my students to use. It includes instructions on how to storyboard their project (with templates), directions on how to find creative commons images, create the video, include a voice over, and properly cite their sources, including adding credits. Feel free to make a copy of it and share it with your students.
*I created this slideshow before iMovie updated with iOS 7. There are a few new features in the app, but everything is pretty much the same. Soon, I will update the presentation to match the new iMovie.
Today I got to experience CUE Rockstar from a different perspective. Kevin Brookhouser invited me to present with him in his Class Polling without Clickers session. I have been using Socrative this school year in both my biology and AVID classes for quizzes, reviews, and for quick checks for understanding. I also shared another tool, Infuse Learning, which is similar to Socrative, but allows the students to write/draw answers. In the two sessions, I got to share what I had learned and done, but I also learned quite a bit from Kevin and the other participants as we discussed ways we would use the tools with our students. To start the session, Kevin told a story which demonstrated how people can have biases about information and what they know when others share or provide information. In the classroom, this happens all the time when students are asked questions. Many times one student raises their hand, and that student provides the correct answer. Everyone else thinks, "oh, yeah, that's what I thought", when they didn't really know the answer. Maybe they would have gotten to that answer, but didn't get a chance to process it or really decide on the answer themselves. That is where clickers come in. Clickers allow all students to have their own voice. But clickers are expensive, and really can only allow students to answer multiple choice or true false answers. As technology is advancing, and smart phones are getting more affordable, many students now bring smart phones or other mobile devices, like iPods, to class. These devices can be used as clickers, with the right website or apps. Poll Everywhere Kevin shared how he uses Poll Everywhere and Google Forms to poll his students. Poll Everywhere allows teachers to ask one question at a time. They can be multiple choice or short answers. The answers can be shown on the board in real time, and the multiple choice answers are shown in a bar graph. Students can text or tweet in answers, or they can use an internet browser to respond. Kevin gave examples of using Poll Everywhere to answer questions as he went over a poem and the concept of paradox. He also shared how he had used it for students to write sentences using vocabulary words. All the sentences show up on the screen and students can discuss if they are correct or why they wrote them in that way. I definitely will use this ideas as my AVID students study their SAT vocabulary or when my biology students practice writing arguments and claims from their readings. Google Forms Next, Kevin showed us a great example of using google forms. He created a peer grading rubric where students fill out the form for each presenter as they practice their presentations. They provide feedback so their peers can make improvements before their final speech. I have used a similar form for grading a class project, but I love having the students help their peers by giving suggestions on how they can improve their presentation. Something that I shared is how I took the info that the students entered in the form, which is really hard to read in the spreadsheet, and I organized it by mail merging the data into a document. I made a google doc that looked like a written out grading rubric, and then used the Autocrat script take the spreadsheet data and put it in the right spots on the document. Autocrat then emails out the doc to the students so they get that feedback. Socrative Next, I shared Socrative and Infuse Learning. I have been using Socrative with my class for quick reviews and small quizzes on and off last school year. I have written a post about it where you can learn how to use it. Today, when sharing the site/app, I learned something new that I am very excited about.
When giving students a Short Answer - Single Question Activity, a teacher will ask students some sort of question. It could be a comparison of mitosis and meiosis, a thesis statement for an essay prompt, or some other higher level question. Students answers will show up anonymously on the teacher's screen. This can be projected out to the class.
After all of the answers are up, the teacher can have the students discuss why they chose their answer and try to persuade the others that their answer is correct. This would be a great way for students to teach each other the content.
Then you can choose to have the students vote on the answer again to show what they now believe is the correct answer. Hopefully you will see more correct answers. This is what it looks like after they vote.
I think that this will be a great way to have students discuss what they know and it will provide them a way to have a structured academic conversation where higher level thinking will take place. Infuse Learning Next, I shared Infuse Learning. I hadn't used this in class with my students yet - I didn't want to try out too many tech tools at once, and Socrative was working for us. The big different with Infuse Learning is that students can draw answers. This would be awesome for math problems, science drawings, imagery in English classes, etc. We learned that it was tough to draw using a laptop, but those on tablets had an easier time. Some comparisons of Socrative and Infuse Learning, is Infuse Learning does not have an app, it is internet based. On a mobile device, it seemed to work best using the Chrome Browser. Also, in Socrative, teachers can name their room number, I named my "Hero". In Infuse Learning, you can't name the room number, and it changes each time you use the website. That might be confusing for the students. On the right are some sample drawings that the participants drew using Infuse Learning. I think that this will be a great tool in my iPad classroom. Shared Resources After we demoed the resources the participants had time to play with the different polling systems. They were tasked with creating a lesson that used one of the polls. Then there was a lesson sharing time at the end of the session. All the teachers had great and creative ideas on how they would use these tools. During the sessions, we had a lot of great conversations and I learned about some other resources and tools. One was Tag Crowd. Tag crowd creates a wordle type image - but the words are all in straight lines instead of bunched up together. I think this would be much easier for English Learners or students with reading difficulties to look at. I also learned about Canned Response - a Gmail lab where you can create canned response emails. The example shared was an email to send to students in response to an email they sent you telling you that they are sick. I think that will really help save some time. We also talked about Google Voice and how French students recorded conversations that were sent to the teacher's voicemail to listen to later. This will make the process of recording themselves much easier, because it automatically gets sent. If using other apps, students must save it, then cut/paste and email the link to the teacher.
Thank You The last three days have been a gold mine of resources, tools, and conversations with great educators to add to my PLN. I have learned so much and have made many good connections with people who are so willing to share and support other educators. All of the presenters went above and beyond. During the morning breakfast time and lunch they always shared what they knew. They had mini sessions at lunch to get educators on twitter, shared how to take good mobile device photos, how to create google forms, or gave a minecraft introduction. And they had spent the time to prep and prepare for amazing sessions. Thank you so much for a great three days. I will definitely be back next year and hope to convince others at my school site to attend with me. (I tried unsuccessfully this year.) And thank you so much Kevin for inviting me to present with you. It was a great experience and I learned a lot today from you and the participants in the two sessions. I am sad CUE Rockstar is over, but I have something to look forward to for next summer! If you are reading this, make sure you sign up for CUE Rockstar Tahoe next year. :)
Today was another great day at the CUE Rockstar Conference. I am exhausted! And a little afraid.... Today is only day two of a full ten straight days of PD! What was I thinking? I just couldn't turn down CUE Rockstar, then the GAFE Summit at Sequoia HS (in my district), a presummit workshop, and three days at the Academy of Sciences learning about NGSS. I have been looking forward to these workshops all summer. But I know I will definitely need a break afterwards. Song Parodies The first session I chose today was Diane Main'sGarageBand Karaoke: Song and Video Parodies to Spice Up Your Teaching. I have always been pretty shy, am not comfortable in front of a crowd, and have a terrible fear of singing. So you are probably wondering why on Earth I would choose this workshop. I assign a project each December where my students create "Biology Carols" to review for their final exams. Students choose a holiday song and re-write the lyrics to teach one of the different standards we have gone over that semester. I collect all the songs and put them in a song book for my students. This is a homework assignment, but in class, on one of our review days, students read through each of the songs. They must fix any errors in the content and add any extra information in the margins that was not included. It is a fun way for the students to review and gets them in the holiday spirit. I have offered extra credit to any students who record the song. I have never had any way for the students to do this before in my class. Now that I have a class set of iPads, my students can actually record their biology carols. I wanted to learn how to use Garage Band and how to actually create the parody. Diane has some great instructions on her webpage and some fun examples. We went over all the steps to creating a parody, from choosing a song and topic, writing the parody, to recording it in GarageBand, to adding in a "video" to go with the song. There were four people in the class and we chose to work together to create one song. Mary Berelson, a 1st grade teacher, wanted to teach her students about bees. It was fun coming up with a song and lyrics - we chose the John Denver song Annie's Song. When writing our lyrics, we used a website called Word Hippo to help us find words that rhyme, are similar, opposite, etc. Thanks Jen Roberts for sharing this cool website with the class. Here is our final song and our lyrics:
Update 7/11/13: Mary created a powerpoint to go with the song to make it a music video. I have added it here. Thanks Mary!
The class was a lot of fun, I enjoyed the process. I'm still not a fan of singing... but I learned how to go through the whole process and use Garage Band. My next step is to compare the iOS version of Garage Band to the Mac Version which we used in class. I also need to see how to get the karaoke background songs onto the iPads, when the students aren't able to purchase songs on the school's iPads. I am excited to have a tool to allow my students to record their Biology Carols.
Interactive Flip Videos For my second workshop, I went to Kevin Brookhouser'sFlip Your Classroom with Presentations, Screencasts, and Interactive You Tube Videos. I have been flipping my classroom for a year and was very intrigued on how to make the videos interactive. I had watched the sample videos on the session's webpage and knew I had to learn how to do this. Kevin showed us a bunch of examples of interactive flipped You Tube videos and then led us through making an example. (English teachers, you will love his grammar videos!) There were two ways we could do this - the video could include the teaching of content and then there would be a quiz at the end OR the video could start with a question and if a student answers it incorrectly, they would get a review of the content We chose to start out with the question first. We created two google presentations, the first included the question and the correct answer. The second presentation included the wrong answer, an explanation of the content, and then try again. We quickly recorded two screencasts, one for each presentation, using quicktime and uploaded both of them to You Tube. We then added in annotations. We used the spotlight to box in our answer choices where the student would click, and linked it to the right spot in the right video. I worked with Karen Wessel and we created a video quizzing students about mitochondria and chloroplasts. We plan to use this as a fun review after we teach our students about cell organelles. Here is our video:
**Note: YouTube was being a little uncooperative today - hopefully all the spotlight links are working correctly now. They were a little "jumpy" this afternoon.
I love how the YouTube annotations allows the flipped videos to really be interactive. The students had to really think during the videos and couldn't just passively watch them. I definitely want to use this in my class this year. One small problem... when these annotated videos are viewed on an iPad, the annotations don't work. :( Since I am planning on having my students watch these videos during class time, as I am flipping using the asynchronous flip mastery model, my students won't be able to watch these interactive videos on the iPads. Hopefully YouTube will make some changes so that the annotations will work on mobile devices.
Dinner Not officially a session... but I was able to have dinner with three great educators - Josh Harris, Scott McMillan, and Lisa McMillan. We talked about what we have learned in our different sessions, shared technology we used in our classes, and just had a great time getting to know each other. I have learned a lot from not just the presenters, but from conversations with all the participants in the sessions, people sitting at the same table at lunch, and from people walking through the hall. Thank you everyone for being so willing to share. I love going to conferences where the educators truly want to be there and share the same views on education as I do - where student learning comes first.
My students had been using a class set of iPads for a semester last school year. Many times, students would ask, "Why are we still using paper?" My goal for this school year is to become a paperless (or near paperless) classroom. I don't think I can do this 100% just yet, some students don't have an easy time accessing technology outside of my class, so I have to provide paper instructions, but I want to head in that direction. For the last few months I have been thinking about how I can have my students keep a digital science notebook. Ideally, it would include class notes (from their watching of flip class videos I have created), lab reports, analysis of reading and current events, and reflections on what they are learning. (I have had them keep a spiral notebook containing all of this in the past.)
Last year, I had students use Google Drive, Blogger, and Schoology for a lot of their work. Students would write papers in google docs, then submit them to Schoology for me to grade, or post the work on their blog. Sometimes they would share their google docs with me when I used the scripts Autocrat or Doctopus. If students wrote something by hand, they would take a photo of it in google drive, then submit it to Schoology. So I wasn't really collecting anything on paper, but I was still giving them handouts with instructions. In addition, many times students were still doing their work on paper. (I gave my students the option on how to complete their assignments. Some students still did not feel comfortable creating and doing all assignments on the iPads, so they always had the choice to create things on paper.) I really liked using Schoology to collect all the assignments. I could give students feedback, they could resubmit their work, and there was no way for me to loose a paper or for the student to say "I swear I turned it in" because everything is timestamped when submitted online. I could also assign grades in Schoology and I could grade assignments anywhere. Schoology also lets my students have structured online conversations, and it is great for exams. My students can take multiple choice, fill in the blank, as well as essay type exams. It was easy for me to grade the exams, and I didn't have to carry around stacks of essays to read, it was all online. This year, I want to utilize the digital science notebook a little more. I want it to be a portfolio of their best work. When students turn things in using Schoology, they have access to all of their assignments, but it isn't as easy as flipping through a notebook. I want students to have everything in one spot which is easily accessible. I want my students to reference their work and not just forget it is there. So I have been looking at using Evernote for this or utilizing Google Drive a little differently where students can post links to their work with reflections on a blog. Here are some comparison from my research.
Using iPads
Pros
Cons
Evernote
·Just one app to use
·Searchable (can search for typed and
handwritten text)
·Can take photos from within app and record
audio
·Students can’t share folder (Teacher has a
premium acct and shares w/ each student, but students can’t share or
collaborate w/ others)
· I could get a business account for my students, but it costs about $30/student/year.
Google Drive & Blogger
·Students can share with others to collaborate and
comment
·Blog is public to the world.When students publish on the web where the
world can see, they tend to take their work more seriously. ·Students can easily add youtube videos which they have created in iMovie or Explain Everything to their blog.
·Have to use multiple programs (Drive app –
only allows docs and spreadsheet, drive on browser using desktop view –
allows you to add pics and additional things than the app, blogger app – most
reliable to use when on the iPad, blogger on browser – to create an account)
·Documents can’t be searched like Evernote
· Using the Drive app, students can only share docs with an email, they can't get the link to share and post the link.
At this point, I am thinking I like the ease of using Evernote on the iPads. I love that everything (taking pics and recording audio) can be done right in the app. But I really want the students to be able to collaborate and share with a larger audience. So even though it will require a few more steps in some cases, I think I am going to have my students set up blogs and continue to use Google Drive. I will still be able to have students turn in some assignments using Schoology, but I can have important assignments shared on their blogs. I want to try to minimize the number of apps/tech I use. I don't want to overwhelm my students. However, I think that the blogs will allow my students to share and get feedback from peers and others across the world. If you have any experience with this, or suggestions, ideas, etc. please share with me. I am still not entirely convinced I have made the best decision, and wold love feedback.
This year, when my AVID students researched different colleges, I didn't want to have to sit through 30 boring powerpoint presentations. I have done this project for years with my students, and honestly, it is not fun listening to the same presentations over and over again. I decided to have my students create videos instead. We used iMovie on the iPad and students created trailers. The trailers are only about one minute long, so they wouldn't be able to fit all of the required information in the movie. So I had students use ThingLink to be a home for their video and then they could also use the tags to add the extra information.
To begin with the project, I had students fill out a google form with their top college choices. I then created an instruction document that also would be their document that they took their notes on. I sent it out to all my students using the google script, autocrat. This allowed me to personalize each document with the college name they were assigned, student names, etc. It also named and shared the document with me so I didn't have to worry about the students forgetting to do so. Students took collaborative notes in a Google doc, planned out and created their iMovie, uploaded it to YouTube, and then made their ThingLink. Creating a ThingLink on an iPad is not ideal, many times it would get a little buggy. But it was possible to do using the Chrome browser, with a little frustration of having to shut down the iPad and logging back in to ThingLink. In the last few days, ThingLink just released an iOS app. It looks like it will have great potential for an iPad classroom. As of right now, you can only add videos and text to your image. You can't add URL links, pictures, etc. Hopefully that change will be made soon. But the current version of the app works really well on the iPads, it is very easy to find a picture and add text or a video. I think that this is a great tool to curate information and to be a "home page" for student multimedia projects. Instead of having to give the teacher multiple links to different parts of a project, they can all be embedded on the ThingLink.
The Common Core Standards have been approved by 47 of the 50 United States. Here in California, many schools have piloted programs incorporating the new CCSS, while others are still learning about how the new standards will impact their teaching practices. I personally still have a lot to learn about the Common Core State Standards, but I am excited to be able to help prepare my biology students to be better scientific writers and to be able to understand and decipher arguments, claims and evidence from scientific papers, labs, and writings. Scientific literacy has always been a strong interest of mine, and the CCSS strongly supports incorporating this in my classroom. Today I was able to attend Connect U, North Bay CUE's annual conference. I learned a lot about google spreadsheets, vlookups and pivot tables (which I am so excited about, thanks to Alice Keeler!), but also was introduced to my new favorite web tool, scrible.com. Scrible.com is a free site which allows students to annotate web resources, write notes, analyze what they read, get citations, collaborate with others, and then write and publish their work. I have included some of the 9th and 10th grade reading and writing standards at the bottom of this blog post. These standards need to be taught not just in English, but history and science courses as well. I believe that Scrible can be used as a tool to facilitate meeting these standards in each subject area. Here is a sample of a webpage I annotated using Scrible.com. (Click on the link to see what the entire document looks like, this pic below is just a small portion.)
Annotations using Scrible.com. These can be shared with others,
and multiple people can edit or annotate the document.
While Scrible doesn't find articles for students, or teach them how to find and analyze the important information or arguments within them, Scrible provides the tools necessary for students to annotate, summarize, and work with the text. Scrible is an amazing tool because it makes the whole process of reading, researching, and writing easier. All the annotations and notes that the students take are saved in the cloud, can be shared with others, and then incorporated into the final report/writing. Scrible is a powerful tool that all students should be using in all of their classes to meet Common Core Standards.
Bibliography created using webpages annotated and saved in your Scrible library.
Students can write reports using notes they took, quotes they highlighted, and add the bibliography info to the bottom of the document.
I wish that I would have had this tool when I was in college (and high school!). I hated having all those note cards, figuring out how to format a bibliography, and carrying everything around. Scrible.com is one of the best tech tools I have seen to help students become college ready. Today I sent a note out to all of my AVID Class of 2012 grads who are finishing their first year of college, and many have signed up for Scrible. Scrible can be used on any computer as well as on the iPad using the Safari Browser. (Not all Scrible features are available on the iPad and I found it a little challenging to use on the device. Scrible will be working on updates and a native app for the iPad in the future.) Here is a video which shows how to sign up for Scrible and how to use it. Right now, Scrible is in beta form, but the developers are very responsive to questions and feedback. Try it out! I am sure you and your students will love it! Use this link to sign up for your free account & a storage upgrade: Scrible. Click here for a tour of Scrible. Click here for a demo where you can play around with it before you sign up. (But you will love it and sign up anyways!)
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.9-10.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts, attending to the precise details of explanations or descriptions.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.9-10.2 Determine the central ideas or conclusions of a text; trace the text’s explanation or depiction of a complex process, phenomenon, or concept; provide an accurate summary of the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.9-10.5 Analyze the structure of the relationships among concepts in a text, including relationships among key terms (e.g., force, friction, reaction force, energy).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.9-10.6 Analyze the author’s purpose in providing an explanation, describing a procedure, or discussing an experiment in a text, defining the question the author seeks to address.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.9-10.8 Assess the extent to which the reasoning and evidence in a text support the author’s claim or a recommendation for solving a scientific or technical problem.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.9-10.9 Compare and contrast findings presented in a text to those from other sources (including their own experiments), noting when the findings support or contradict previous explanations or accounts.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.9-10.1a Introduce precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that establishes clear relationships among the claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.9-10.1b Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly, supplying data and evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both claim(s) and counterclaims in a discipline-appropriate form and in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level and concerns.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.9-10.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.9-10.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.9-10.8 Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.
In the past, when creating online web quests for students, teachers had to set up elaborate websites, or just give their students a bunch of links on a handout. Creating websites took too much time and was too difficult for most teachers to do. And when you give students a bunch of links, they inevitably type the URL in wrong. Now there is an easy answer. Mentor Mob is a great online tool which allows teachers (and students too) to curate websites, documents, videos, etc. into playlists. You can even add quizzes to the playlist. Teachers can embed their Mentor Mob playlists into a website or blog, and students can get to all the links and read descriptions or instructions that you leave for each one. You can also give students a link to the playlist that contains all the websites. Here is an example of a playlist I used for students in my biology class. They were learning about how drugs interact with the nervous system. There is a lot of information about drugs on the internet, and I didn't want to let them loose and find inappropriate material. So I curated a list on Mentor Mob of websites I wanted them to use.
Here is a video explaining how to use and set up a Mentor Mob playlist.
Be sure to install the Google Chrome Mentor Mob extension to be able to easily add websites to your playlists. I have seen other teachers have their students set up playlists as portfolios of their work. I haven't tried that yet, but it sounds like a great idea.