Here's an example of an ED Puzzle I created for extra credit points.  It's public, so feel free to use it.  I simply used the seamless integration with Google Classroom to assign an extra credit assignment.  Students will watch the video, answer, and ED puzzle will tell me if they have watched it, and grade their answers.  For free.  I just need to put the grades in Aspen.  Copy and paste or click the link, and use it yourself.  Also for free.

https://edpuzzle.com/media/5850a5d623db2d4526c94e98



Editor's Note:  The above link will not take you where you want to go.  If you want to see my ED Puzzles, or those of anyone in school, sign up for a free account, and note the brand-spanking new "Private Channel" option, which lists "my school".  There you can see content from the intrepid Lori LaFrance, and the darling Sarah Latimer.  Inviting the rest of the science department to get in on this...

ED Puzzle App: Sarah Latimer's Choice of the Month

Ok.  You have an enzyme video that you want the kids to watch during class, but you know that half of them will be watching random YouTube videos.  You have a fabulous EU chemical party YouTube skit, but one of your freshman spotted Hydrogen and Carbon miming a shag in the background during the final 5 seconds. You found the best and funniest explanation of fake science, but John Oliver has a potty mouth.  What is an overworked teacher to do?  ED Puzzle!  This free (with upgrades for $) app allows me to upload any video from the Web or my own sources and slap it on Classroom with the naughty bits excised, the boring parts cut, and the salient two minutes highlighted.  I can write and embed questions which students can't go beyond until they are answered.  Then ED Puzzle tracks their progress:  did they watch the darn thing?  How many times?  On time, or late?  Then it puts all that data in a class folder, from which I can later pull the data, and which I can show to all those who whine that they really DID watch the video in class.  Easy to operate.  You won't need my help, but I live in the upstairs high school faculty room, B 217, 24/7.  Come see me if you want to be walked through it.

TodaysMeet: a great way to make your students do the thinking

TodaysMeet.com is a chat platform designed for teachers. It takes very little time to be up and running; just a few minutes to set up a free account and a link for your students. This is a great way to record some "See, Think, Wonder" activities. Project a prompt for your students,give them the link and 3 to 5 minutes to start generating questions about the prompt, it is that easy. The students may start off posting factual questions but before long they are asking higher order thinking questions. It is amazing to watch their thinking start to get deeper and deeper as they feed off of each other. This is a great tool to use as a hook in the beginning of a unit or to extend the conversation and gives every student a voice.

Once you project the prompt, ask students to start generating questions, let them know that you will not be answering questions right away and that you will not be judging the questions.It is just a brainstorming activity of questions.The students do not need an account of their own to use it. As a teacher, you are asked to start a room and may open it to any user or logged in students only. It is a good idea to keep the room open for a year because once you close a room there is no way to reopen it. The questions that students generate are viewed by all and are kept for as long as your room is open. You can print out the questions or just save them. Students are asked to create a nickname to enter the room, if you would like to keep students anonymous, tell them to all use the same nickname.

 Tis the season for goal setting so I thought I would pass along a couple of Educator Evaluation TeachPoint tips:

1.  If you go into TeachPoint and you are concerned that you cannot see any of your files from last year, do not be concerned.  You can access your previous year's files by clicking on the arrow next to "Current Year" and changing it to "Last Year".

2.  A TeachPoint enhancement now makes it possible to attach Google Drive files or links to any form.  For example, if you click on one of the paper clips on the Artifact Form you now have options for Google Drive files and links.

3.  When setting your goals, you no longer need the Goal Setting Form.  Since your goals are also listed on the Educator Plan Form, the Educator Evaluation Committee determined that the other form is redundant.  You can initiate your own Educator Plan Form by clicking on "New".

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask your Educator Evaluation Committee representative.  Since our contract says Educators should submit proposed goals and plans 'on or about' October 1st, our goals are already due or will be due soon.

HS shared folder

1. How to find the HS shared folder
1. In the google drive search bar type file_HighSchool, the folder will pop up
2. Click on the folder below to view content

1. How to Add content to the the file_HighSchool Folder
1. Right Click on the document you want to move to the file_HighSchool folder
2. Click on the “Move to”.. Icon

c. Click the back arrow and select Shared with Me

d. scroll until you find the file_HighSchool folder and click Move Here

Adding a Guardian to Google Classroom

The new guardian feature in Google Classroom helps keeps parents/guardians informed of assignments and class announcments.

First Turn on guardian email summaries

By default, guardian email summaries are turned off, but you can turn them on for your class. 

1. Go to classroom.google.com.
2. Click your class and the Students Tab.
3. Under Guardian Email Notifications (located on the left side of the window), click Include this class to On . 
4. (Optional) Check the box to add all your classes to guardian summaries.
5. Click Add.

Invite a guardian

Google Classroom has a new feature called Guardian.This feature allows you to add a parent/guardian's email address so that they get email notifications about upcoming assignments, missing work, and class assignments. 

If you can’t invite or remove a guardian, contact your administrator for help. 

1. Go to classroom.google.com.
2. Click the class.
3. At the top, click Students.
4. Next to a student’s name, click Invite Guardians.
   To invite additional guardians, next to the student’s name, click More   Invite guardians.
5. In the text field, type a guardian’s email address.
6. Click Invite to send the invitation or Add Another to add another guardian email address.

If an invitation has been sent and the guardian hasn’t yet accepted, you’ll see “(invited)” after the guardian's email address. After a guardian accepts the invitation, you and their student will receive a confirmation email and the guardian’s full name will show next to the student’s name. For privacy, students don’t see the names of other students’ guardians.

Moving Google Files From One Drive to Another

This is the time of year when teachers are retiring or possibly changing jobs/careers. IF you are the person who may be leaving you probably want to bring your Google files with you.

If your colleague is leaving and they have "shared documents" with you then the shared documents will be lost forever when the teachers school Google account is closed. You probably what to get those Google Docs before the account is closed.


"TAKE OUT" is a program that  easily save those documents and allow you to move files from one account to another,

https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout

Great Assitive Technology

Capti is an app and an online platform for universal access to content.
It is the only app that works on Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Chromebooks!
Besides Bookshare, it works with web pages, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.
Capti for iOS is listed among the top accessibility apps on the AppStore.

A recent Fox 5 news feature: https://youtu.be/Z4Yz9SGI410
A few interviews with teachers: https://youtu.be/Ju1quucWaYE

Google Speech Maker

"Read&Write for Google Chrome users have yet another reason to be excited about the literacy support toolbar used by over 4.5 million students and teachers in classrooms across the globe. Today we’re excited to announce several new updates available for immediate use, including the ability to create audio files, customize your toolbar, and more!

Speech Maker
Now students (and their teachers) can select text from any Google Document or Web page and turn it into a MP3 audio file with a single click! 

This is great for students who are on the go, or prefer listening over other methods of consuming text. It is also great for instructional purposes where students are paired with a book and can follow along as they listen through their earbuds." 

7 Maps Show What's On The Other Side Of The Ocean From Anywhere In The World

Have you ever wondered what is across the ocean when you are looking out over the water?  Kathy Golemon, our Doyon friend,  came across this awesome resource.

7 Maps That Show What's On The Other Side Of the Ocean From Anywhere in The World

Resources for Creating Newspaper Articles

Here are some great resources for creating newspaper articles.  These Google templates are designed to create authentic looking newspaper. There are dozens to choose from and can be stored, shared, and published within your Google Drive.

https://drive.google.com/templates?type=docs&q=newspaper&sort=user&view=public&ddrp=1#

Downloading Vidoes

Need a YouTube video but don't want all the advertisements? Do you want to show a video but you are afraid that you might loose your internet connection? Then use ClipGrab to save your YouTube video to your computer free of advertisements.

ClipGrab http://clipgrab.org/.

Make a Jeopardy Template with Google Slides

Here is the link to a great post by Kevin Zahner that walks you through the process of making a Jeopardy game using Google Slides.

http://learning.zahnerhistory.com/2016/02/make-jeopardy-template-with-google.html

Adios, Picasa!

From "The Gooru"  02/15/16

Picasa, the Google photo organization and storage app, is being retired on March 15, 2016. In an announcement from the Picasa Blog, the Picasa team describes their reasoning for “moving on from Picasa.” In an effort to unite all photo entities, Google is focusing their photo services in Google Photos. Google Photos was launched last May. The free service provides unlimited storage for photos and video files.

The good news for Picasa users is that your photos from Picasa Web Album are already located on Google Photos. In Google Photos, you can access your previously uploaded images and continue to use Google to store, share, and organize your memories. Access to your tags, comments, or captions in your existing Picasa Web Albums are available through May 1, 2016. The storage for Picasa Web Albums will be determined once May rolls around.

For more information on the upcoming changes, visit the Picasa Blog, and to learn more about Google Photos, here is your personal guide.

Tackk.com for Digital Projects or Student Portfolios

If you are looking for a free, easy way to share content with students, parents or other teachers, you should check out Tackk.com.  Tackk is a free digital creation platform where teachers and students can create, collaborate and share content to support in-classroom learning.

If you use Tackk with students, they will be able to:

• Create digital pages, online reports and assignments building their school portfolio
• Create a Tackkboard that includes text, photos, video, audio, maps and links
• Collaborate and communicate with the teacher and other classmates
• Keep track of project details and share creative work
• Access Tackk from any computer or mobile device with Internet capabilities and receive notification reminders via email (if of age)

The only information required from students to set up a Tackk account is their name, email and a username and password, or Google or Edmodo login info. For students in grades without Google login info, a teacher could set up classroom Tackks under their account for their students’ use.

Another way to use Tackk is to create digital portfolios for your students.  I have created a Tackkboard for each of my students and I’m using them as their writing portfolios.  At the beginning and end of each writing unit, I scan their pre and post assessments and saved them in on my Google Drive.  For each assessment I created a button on each student’s Tackkboard that included the link to that document on my Drive.  Now I have a digital writing portfolios that I can share with students, parents, current year teachers (ELL, Reading Support, Special Education) and next year’s teachers too!  I was able to set up privacy settings on each Tackkhoard so that it is password protected so it restricts public access on the internet.  

Check out these photos of my students’ digital writing portfolios…

Teacher Tackkboard with student individual Tackkboard portfolios:

Here is an example of a Student Tackkboard being used as a digital writing portfolio.  If you click on a button you are brought to the scanned image of the student’s writing.

Tackk can be used in so many ways!  If you want to try it out and you have questions, I’m happy to help!

FREE Online Poster Tool

Have you discovered the free online poster making website Canva? It is similar to Glogster, but without having students create an account. It is a useful classroom tool when you are looking for students to create a poster-like project. There are paid choices that students need to be careful not to select. One way around this was when students did select these in their poster we ended up taking a screenshot of the final product and printing it. This is only useful when you are not including interactive features.

Check it out: www.canva.com Sample Project: Fifth graders were asked to create a poster of an early colonist living in one the original 13 colonies looking to fill jobs in their colony. They needed to include the skills needed to perform the job and who they would trade their goods with:

MORE FREE STUFF! 

 Sign up for a Boston Pubic Library E-Card  http://www.bpl.org/general/circulation/ecards.htm and instantly borrow free digital movies, music, eBooks and more, 24/7 from HOOPLA!   

 

The Gale In Context Databases are synced to Google Classroom!

Below are a couple of great videos that demonstrates how to quickly send selected articles and documents from Gale databases to Google Classroom to use with your students and how to save articles and documents to your Google Drive for later use. 

Looking for a new app? Tell About This is a great app for creating stories, retelling stories. and fluency recordings.  The apps prompts students  to use complete sentences and dig deeper into their retelling skills.

Recommended for: elementary/middle school students, ELA, Speech, and support for struggling writers of all ages.

Axis 360 is HERE! 

The Ipswich Schools are taking part in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ebook and audio book initiative! We have  access to tons of current, popular and best-selling fiction and nonfiction titles for both adults and students. Click here to access . Set up an account by creating a username starting with ipsk12 (for example, ipsk12aconnelly). Any problems contact the Middle/ High School Librarian (aconnelly@ipsk12.net)  and she'll walk you through it!

How to Change Default Settings in Google Docs

 How to change your default settings in Google docs:

1. Highlight your text

2. Select the font style drop down menu

3. Select your desired default font (Times New Roman or a font of your choice)

4. Select the "font size" drop down menu

5. Select your desired default font size

6. Select the "format" menu then "line spacing"

7. Select your desired line spacing

8. Select the Normal Text drop down menu

9. Select the arrow next to "Normal" Text and select “update Normal Text to match” (see screenshot 1)

10. Select the "Normal" Text drop down menu

11. Select the very bottom “options” menu

12. Select “Save as my default styles".(see screenshot 2)

screenshot 2

 

The 4th Annual Ed Tech Team New England Summit will be held on March 12-13, 2016 at the Marshall Simonds Middle School,  Burlington Ma. This summit will feature Google for Education and brings together educators from around the world to learn and share how they are using Google Apps for Education. If you are interested in attending please email cburke@ipsk12.net. For more information please click here 

How to Find Creative Commons (CC) Material Using YouTube

Below is a link to a great set of PDF directions put together by SmartCopying.edu on how to find videos on YouTube that fall under the Creative Common License. I also will provide a link to their PDF version of "What is Creative Commons?" These resources are great if you are looking to do any video projects in class.

What is Creative Commons?

How to Find Creative Commons (CC) Material Using YouTube