Screen Recording on your Chromebook

Hi all,

It's been a while since I posted, but I wanted you all to know about some websites that are awesome for creating videos and capturing you talking, or you talking over your screen.  Two really great products are available to you and easy to use, edit, and share.

Let's start with Screencastify.  Screencastify.com will allow you to record your screen, or part of your screen and also put your video face as an overlay.  This is great from providing voice-over to a presentation or document and connect with your audience.  The video will save into your Google Drive and be accessible anytime.  You'll be able to share the video, or download the video to upload other places.

Screencastify has a Chrome extension that allows you to access it with just one click.

Screencastify also has a pretty nice editor, so you can trim videos, to get them just right.  Editing can be done from the editor after you record.

You can share your videos to many locations.  You can place it directly in Google Classroom, or even download for later.

But, one of Screencastify.com's restrictions on the free version is that it restricts you to 5 minutes of video.  It is a nice product and easy to use, but 5 minutes means you have to record in parts, or find another product...

The other product you might want to explore is Loom.com.

Loom provides educators with unlimited recording.  Loom also provides a Chrome extension.  When you go to loom.com you need to create an account using your school email address.  Once you have an account built with Loom, you need to get an upgrade.  Go to this link and request an upgrade, and they are giving educators one for free.  Click on the blue button and get your account verified.

Loom videos are stored on their website in your account.  You can edit your videos on the website, or you can share with the link.  You can also download the video to use somewhere else.  The nice thing about Loom is that it allows you more than 5 minutes.  You can make them public or control by requiring the link.

So, as you start to think about teaching with video lessons, whether is is online teaching or blended opportunities, you might want to consider one of these two options.  Both of them are Google friendly and easy for teachers and students to use.

Google Adds Capitalization Formatting

Google recently added a new formatting tool into Docs.  You can now change the format of the text in your document.  You can change to "all caps", "all lower case", and "Title Case."  This is a nice new feature.  It is in the Format menu.  Check it out.

Team Drives is Coming in GAFE Account

Why would you need a Team Drive if you can share folders?  What does it do for us?

Well, here you go.  Have you ever been part of a committee and the person that runs the group has shared a folder with you, then leaves to take another job.  Who has access?  Who owns the materials?  A Team Drive will allow you to work with a drive that others can manage.  This could be quite beneficial to groups and PLNs.  Here is what a Team Drive Looks like.  I created a Team Drive called Playing Around and shared it with my other GAFE account and a few friends (outside the domain).

You can invite other users.

   

You can control permissions.

Notice the different choices you can give your colleagues and friends.  Full access seems to give them  "joint ownership" permissions.  They can even delete files from the folder.  This is pretty powerful.

I have just started to play around with the drive.  I feel it will make sharing with your groups, classes, PLNs a little easier and more reliable for long-term projects.  Look for it soon in your Google Apps accounts.

What is New in Google Apps

Here are a few highlights of what is new with Google Apps for Education (g Suite).

Improvements Coming for Google Forms

Google Forms are rolling out some nice improvements.  Google is leveraging the fact that thousands of users are creating questions in Google Forms and using that information to provide Forms users with suggestions about question types and suggested answers.

Here is an example of a question as simple as "What is your name?" and Forms suggests a Short answer question type.  It saves just a few seconds, but that all adds up.

Another is "What day of the week will you be attending?" and it suggests Multiple choice as the question type.  Forms also suggests the answer choices - see all of the days of the week that you can just click and use.  You can also see the shirt size example.  It is pretty helpful.

You will even see that Rating questions will suggest using a Linear scale to collect the data.

In early November, Google Forms will also provide users with the question type that will allow for Forms takers to turn in files from their computer.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  It is supposed to create a folder that will collect all of the submissions.  Teachers may be able to use a Google Form to collect homework from students.  This seems like a nice addition.

It is great to see Google recognize Forms as a very powerful tool for users and continue to make improvements.

Google Docs - Two Column Layout

One of the great things about Google Apps for Education is that new features come around all of the time.  It is sometimes difficult to keep up with all of the new features that come out.  How about this one?  Google Docs now has a multiple-column layout available.  You can now layout in two or three columns to create those flyers, newsletters, handouts, etc. that you would have to leave Google to do. Now you can enjoy the power of collaborative work and create those communications with multiple column layouts.

Google Training with Synergyse for GAFE

Have you ever wanted to learn more about Gmail or Google Drive?  Ever wanted some quick tips about Google Calendars?  Well, you now have an easy way to get those quick tips.  Synergyse Google Apps Training is now available in your Google Apps for Education account.  You'll want to install it in your Chrome Browser through the Chrome Web Store.  Synergyse is an extension that installs and appears in each of your Google Apps in the upper right corner near the settings gear.

While in one of your Google Apps, like gmail, calendars, docs, or others, you can click the circular logo to open training videos and tips.  Check them out.  They are a great resource and easy way to keep up with what is new with Google Apps for Education.

FETC Part 3 - The Sessions

This is the last of the installments of FETC 2016.  This will be the last summary of sessions and a few quick take-aways.  As I mentioned in my previous posts, this might have been one of the best conferences I've attended.  The sessions were informative, thought provoking, and full of real-life experiences.  It was also nice to be attending the conference with 3 others from my district, which provided all of us the ability to process what we had heard.

My first session of the last day was Schools That Work for Kids, with Eric Sheninger (@e_sheninger).  He shared about the process he went through to change his school into a school students wanted to attend.  He wanted his school to work for the students, because most schools work for the teachers and ignore what the students want or need.  He talked about what changes needed to occur and that those ideas came from having conversations with the students.  It was important to make it "their school."  He created awesome learning spaces and allowed the students to design them.  He shares his presentation with everyone here - bit.ly/Schools4Kids .  You need to answer a few questions, but then you have some great resources.  He mentioned that you really need to work the hard to inspire the ones that don't want to change.

I also attended another of Eric's sessions later in the day, Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times.  He shared how technology is changing the educational landscape and that we need to adapt and anticipate those changes.  He stressed the need to embrace social media to tell your story.  You also need to create a brand to represent your school and make sure your messages always support the brand.  Focus on improving public relations and continue learning like never before.  His experiences are well documented and he was sure to point out that there were failures along the way.  It wasn't easy, but the benefits were great.  Here are some resources that he shared - bit.ly/DigiLeadICLE15.

One of the most fun sessions I attended was facilitated by Leslie Fisher (@lesliefisher). She had a great time sharing cool apps and websites with the teachers in attendance. Teachers from the audience were invited to come up and share some cool application. Some of them were:

iBrainstorm App for iPad
Starlogo Nova
Kiddle.co a search engine for kids
Sign Easy App for iPad
Permission Click for collecting permissions
YT Full Fill - a Chrome extension for viewing YouTube

There were a few more fun ones, but I am going to save those to use with my friends. Maybe a future post will give them away.

Conference Take-aways

If you ever get the chance to attend FETC, do it.  What a chance to learn and connect with some outstanding educators and leaders.  Mark your calendars for 2017 - Jan. 24-27.

FETC Part 2 - The Sessions

FETC built its conference around the following topics: Communication and Collaboration, Digital Teaching Tools and Game-Based Learning, Educational Policy and Leadership, Emerging Technologies and Maker Tools, Instructional Design, Mobile Learning, Online and Blended Learning, Professional Development, and Technology Infrastructure. There were hundreds of sessions to choose from, so the four of us decided to split up and see as much as we could.

My first session dealt with Professional Development. Two teachers shared how their PD was developed to model 1-to-1 learning, by recording PD sessions and posting them in their LMS, so that teachers could go back and watch on their own time. The sessions were offered live and recorded. They created a 9-part webinar series for all teachers to learn from. This session illustrated the use of an LMS for professional learning, not just for teaching the students. Our staff could benefit from the creation of PD courses created in our new LMS, Schoology.

The next session, a Journey Into BYOT (Bring Your Own Tech), by Katrina Keene (@teachintechgal), discussed a plan to involve students, teachers, parents, and administrators to develop BYOT. Katrina shared success and struggles that they ran into along the way. It is important to ask WHYs?, and think thoroughly through the HOWs?. It is also important to involve all of your stakeholders. Parent education is a big part of success, and PD for staff in being flexible moving forward. There will be a lot of different devices, and the teacher doesn’t have to know them all. Empower the students, let them help or they can figure it out.

Lisa Bradshaw (@lbradshawedtech) led a session about Model Instructional Technology Classrooms. She developed model classrooms slowly, so that other teachers in the school could come see the successes that were happening. Model Classroom teachers were given the necessary tech, professional development to know what was expected and how to make it happen, and support of technology leaders when failure (or learning opportunities) happened. Their PD for technology use modeled around the SAMR model. Each year more teachers were added as Model Classrooms and eventually buildings moved entirely to quality technology enhanced classrooms.

My next session was conducted by Andrew Marcinek (@andycinek). Andy led a session to examine and explore instructional design and how to plan lessons and units to make learning an active experience. He also spent time exploring learning spaces where furniture and technology allowed students to move about the room and work together in groups. He shared pictures of great learning spaces and encouraged members of the session to think about how we could change spaces for our students.

The last session of day 2 was one centered around Digital Citizenship. The discussion centered around just being a good citizen (why do we need the digital part). Students need to be taught and reminded about being a good member of society. These two teachers, Timothy Wilhelmus (@twilhelmus) and Jeffrey Tron (@JeffTron71), shared how they work with students to keep reminding them of these skills. It is not just a one-time lesson. Digital Citizenship is something that needs to be brought back up over and over. There are many resources that were shared.   They can be found at Bit.ly/DIGCITFETC16.

Sessions were outstanding and we had interesting conversations about how we could bring this information back to our district. There were many things that we can share with our colleagues. It will be fun implementing some of the creative concepts we saw.  There will be one more installment of learning that occurred at FETC.

FETC - Future of Education Technology Conference (Part 1)

Last week, I had the opportunity to take a few members of our district's technology planning committee to Orlando, Florida for the Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC). I know, you think Orlando in January, and you think it is just a fun get-away. You would be wrong. This conference was outstanding. The sessions were meaningful and covered issues that were relevant to quality education and learning. Another important quality of the sessions was that the sessions were run by teachers and administrators, talking about their experiences. Many conferences are comprised of sessions sponsored by vendors.

This first post will focus on the Keynotes.

The opening keynote was Reshma Saujani (@reshmasaujani), who is the founder and CEO of Girls Who Code. She shared her story and experiences as well as framing a need in America. There is a need for our students to understand engineering and technology. She was a huge supporter of STEM education and wants to close the gender gap in the areas of computer science and tech. That is why she formed Girls Who Code. Her goal is to provide computer science education and exposure to over 1 million girls by 2020, through summer camps and after-school programs.

The next keynote was Leland Melvin (@astro_flow), former NFL football player and astronaut. He shared his story of growing up with teacher parents, exposure to engineering activities, perseverance, and support. Here is a short video of his story. His ability to overcome failures and setbacks was impressive and motivating. We need to help our students experience setbacks and show determination to overcome them.

The last keynote was Sean McComb (@Mr_McComb), the 2014 National Teacher of the Year. He created a program for his school called AVID. This program allowed him and other teachers in his school to move with a group of students through all 4 years of high school. By building relationships, and using those relationships to encourage and push the students, they were able to increase their students’ achievement. Almost all of that group of students was accepted into a 4-year university. Here is a clip from one of his keynotes. His story is clear about the power of teacher/student connections, and the powerful impact teachers have.

I will post again soon, with some information about the concurrent sessions that were conducted.

More Google Classroom Updates - Calendars

Google Classroom added calendars.  You can now see a calendar with all of your assignments and you don't actually have to go into Classroom.  You can activate that feature by going to the "About" section of your Classroom after you make a new assignment.  Then, you'll be able to open your calendar in Classroom or open in Google Calendar.  Here is the "About" section.

Once you've put it in your Google Calendar, you'll be able to see it in your "my calendars" list and perform features with calendars, like changing colors, adding events (but not assignments), and even sharing.  You could now post this calendar on your public webpage for parents to see.  Google Classroom is making awesome improvements.  Check them out.

Another feature about the calendar is that the item in your calendar provides a link back to the actual assignment in Google Classroom, so you don't have to search to find that assignment.

Audiobooks are a Great Option

We are one month into summer vacation and I've already completed more books than I would have during a whole year.  Why have I avoided audiobooks?  They are awesome.  I have been listening to books when I walk - trying to get 1 hour per day - and it has been great.  My wife loves Audible and has purchased a few books.  I was able to share her account and read some of the books she has read. I also have been using Overdrive, and listening to audiobooks from the library, for free!

Audible has an iOS App and works great on my iPhone.  It also hooks up great using bluetooth in my car, so I can listen when driving around.

Overdrive also has an iOS App and works on the iPhone and in the car.  It does require a library card so that you can reserve and check out audiobooks from your library.  It also returns the books after the time allowed.  Bonus - no trip to the library to return!

Because of the ease of use and access of these Apps, I've read some outstanding books.  I would recommend them all to you.  Most of them are reviewed by Franki on her blog, A Year of Reading.

The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connection, and Courage, by Brene Brown

David and Goliath, by Malcolm Gladwell

The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal, by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, by Gary Keller

Every Day I Fight, by Stuart Scott

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand




All of these books have been entertaining and enlightening.  I would never have been able to read this many outstanding books during this time.  I wish that I would have had this type of resource available to me during my time in school.

Link to Different Slides in a Google Slides Presentation

There are times when you would like to be able to jump around a presentation.  You can build links into your slides that jump to other slides in the same presentation.  The following video will show how to create those links.  It will also show that you can link from objects, like shapes and pictures.  It is quite a nice feature.

Students might like to use this feature when building a "choose your own adventure" type presentation.  Give it a look, then give it a try.

Grading Google Assessments with Flubaroo

Flubaroo is a Google Sheets Add-on that can grade Google Form submissions.  It has the ability to easily grade multiple-choice questions, but can also grade free response, as well.  Flubaroo also has some other features that are awesome for teachers.  It can auto-grade, and send results to the student as soon as the student hits submit.  Here is a link to the Flubaroo website, if you'd like to see their description and materials.

Flubaroo also has some interesting grading features that you may want to be aware of.  They are described here and demonstrated in the video.

1.  In order for Flubaroo to grade answers and be case-sensitive you need to fill out the key with a %cs in front of the response.  If you need a capital C in Columbus, answer the key with %cs Columbus.  If there is no %cs, Flubaroo doesn't care about capitalization.

2.  If you would like to allow multiple correct responses, you'll need to fill out the key with a %or in between possible solutions, like red %or white %or blue, when asking for a color in the USA flag.

3.  If you would like an answer to fall within a certain range, like between 3 and 4, you'll need to use a %to between the numbers.  If the key shows 3 %to 4, it will allow a correct response for anything from 3 to 4.

These are some nice possibilities that Flubaroo allows for grading.  Below is a tutorial of how to use Flubaroo.  Give it a look!

Two New Features in Google Classroom

How about Google?  They definitely listen to suggestions.  They have made two really nice improvements.  First, they have added the ability to have multiple teachers in a Google Classroom.  See my previous post about getting started with Google Classroom, if you want to get going.  Now you can invite another teacher to help out.  This is great.  That teacher can do everything in the class, except delete the class.  The teacher is invited through the "About" section of the course.

The other new feature is the ability to create announcements and assignments and save them for later.  You can create the assignment without the students seeing it.  Then, when you want them to have the assignment, you make it active.  This is an awesome feature for teachers who like to work ahead, without the students knowing what is coming.

I really give it up to Google for listening to the suggestions teachers have made.  Give Google Classroom a try, it will really help your sharing of documents with your students.

Suggesting Edits in Google Docs

There has been a recent change to the edits you can make to a Google document.  Now, as long as you  have Commenting or Editing permissions, you can "Suggest Edits" to a document.  You start a suggestions by placing your cursor where you want the edit to go.  You select "Suggesting" from the menu on the top right of the document.  You'll see a pencil icon up there.  Then type the suggestion.  It will show up in the document, but not be official until the owner "OKs" the suggestion.

Here are your choices of edits.  Notice, the Editing choice is "grayed" out because the example I chose came from a document that I only had "Commenting" permission.

When you type in your suggestion, it will show up and a "post-it" will show up on the right to show what the suggestion was and where it should go.  The owner then needs to approve or disapprove of the change.  The owner gets an email to notify them of the suggestion.

This is a pretty nice feature.  It makes the suggestions a little nicer than just highlighting and making the suggestion in the "Comment" box.  Next time you are collaborating with someone, give the "Suggesting" option a try.

Getting Started with Google Classroom

This year, Google introduced Classroom as a tool for teachers in Google Apps for Education domains.  Classroom has proven to be a very helpful tool to help teachers and students work together and keep their documents organized.  Classroom is built to perform some tasks very well.  It is great at providing teachers a platform to make announcements (and other communications) to their students, distribute and collect assignments from students (with all of the great features of Google Drive), and provide an online collection of digital resources for their students to access at any time.

Google Classroom is a very nice tool for teachers to utilize.  Below is a video of how a teacher would create their Google Classroom, as well as what that classroom looks like as a student.  It will walk you through what you need to know to get started with your students.  Give it a look.

Now that you've seen it in action, you probably want to give it a try.  Go ahead!

Here are some suggestions as to how you might use Google Classroom with your students.

Share Materials - Use the “Announcement” to distribute files, Google Drive files, YouTube videos, and Links to your students. It can also share to any other classes you teach, as well.

Class Discussions - Use the “Announcement” to pose questions for class discussions. Your students will be able to reply to you and each other.

Distribute and Collect files - Use “Assignment” to distribute and collect files to your students in an organized manner. Your folder in Drive will thank you for it. It will also allow for the ownership of the file to pass back and forth with the student.

Shared editing of a file - Give the students access to edit a document with their classmates. The will be able to co-edit and create some great work. They could create a Presentation by sharing a Google Slides presentation, then each student could add a slide.

Go Paperless - Pass out and collect everything right in your classroom.

Google Classroom is a pretty awesome new tool. Google is working to make improvements, as well. I am curious to see where it ends up, but I think teachers will love it.

Draftback for Google Docs using Chrome

Have you ever wanted to analyze the development of your writing?  This Chrome extension - Draftback - will allow you to do it with relative ease.  Draftback allows you to play back your revision history of any Google Doc you can edit.

Download it from here - Click the link

Read more about it here - Click the link

Here is what it looks like when you open it on one of your docs.

Here is what it looks like when it is playing back.

This might be awesome for teachers wanting to analyze the process their students are going through when writing.  Give it a look!

Starting a Google Hangout

I frequently get asked about how to create a Google Hangout.  Google Hangouts are a great way to video chat with other Google users.  They are free and easy to setup and use.  There are 3 ways to easily start a Google Hangout.

1.  Go into your Google Plus account   "+ You" on any Google Page  

     Find the "Home" menu on the top-left side of the page
     Choose Hangouts
     Select Video Hangout

2.  Go to your GMail page
     Find a contact on the bottom-left corner
     Hover over that contact
     Click the camera button to start Hangout


3.  Go to your Calendar page
     Create a new event
     Include video call
     Invite other users
     The event will contain a link to join video Call.

Here is a video demonstrating all of these methods.

Shared with Me is Back

Google has listened to many users that wanted their "Shared with Me" button back in the new Google Drive.  Google changed "Incoming" back to "Shared with Me."  It also added some features that will be demonstrated in the video below.

The changes include-
1.  Being able to click on the object - Incoming would only allow "hovering," when you wanted to work with an item in your "Incoming" folder.

2.  Being able to drag an item directly into a folder that is on your Google "My Drive."

3.  Being able to select multiple items at one time.  You can do this on a mac by holding down the command key.  This used to be an option in the old drive, because you could select with check boxes.  I say, "Welcome Back!" to this feature.

Check out these changes in Google Drive.