Use Your LMS to Organize Your Year

I posted my reasons for using a learning management system (LMS) for organizing your classroom and delivering content to students in the past. An LMS can be a great organizational tools for teachers to use to organize their year even if there is no intent of having students login to the online classroom.  I believe the LMS is a better way to deliver assignments than posting links to your webpage but having a classroom webpage can be a great start to get all students on the same page.

Today’s tip is about using the LMS to organize you independent of student work. I choose to work with Schoology.  I use Schoology because students can upload content from a number of different resources and it links with Google Drive, YouTube, Khan Academy, etc.  The difference with something like Google Classroom or Learning.com is proprietary software is designed for sharing their resources and I like a little more variety and control. I can setup my entire classroom, align standards to assignments, and set due dates and see them in a calendar.  Even if I print out PDF pages or never collect an assignment online I’m able to archive the entire course and the next time I teach it add or remove resources. 

See how I have folders for each Unit with a description of what’s in the unit.  

Then if you look inside those units you can see individual resources sometimes links to other websites, sometimes a video, and sometimes a discussion post or assignment.

Have you ever saved something to use later?  Maybe you have not used it for 5 years or maybe something you used every year for the last 10 years is now out of date.  You don’t have to get rid of the file, but you can take it out of your course.  I save things to my Resources if I don’t want to get rid of it but it doesn’t pertain to this course this year.

Use the LMS to organize you! This works for all grades!  Then all you have to do is login to the LMS from any computer to access the content.  No worries about forgetting your flash drive or you forgot to charge your laptop, just login to another computer because the LMS stores everything in the cloud.  

Create a Google Form to track professional and parent contact

Why a form?

By using a form you don't have to remember what information to log and all the information is in one place and easy to access.  This type of information makes sense if you want to track all communication or log time spent on activities all in one place.  If you prefer to log information per student this might make more sense to put in your gradebook.  You can always copy the information from the form responses into your gradebook comments to keep a log AND keep with student records.  I find it easiest to keep all contacts in one place.  Emails are easy to save but you still may want to log emails and reference the save location in case you need documentation.  Either way, it's smart to log your communication somewhere and I found this to be a quick and easy fix.  The initial form takes 20 minutes to make and logging contacts at the time is a breeze.

 Start with a form that allows you to select the type of contact Parent or Professional

Question type choose from a list.

Then you can choose the box go to page based on answer if the form will be different based on the contact type.

I then select the information I want to collect.  I make sure I add a time/date option but the form will be automatically time stamped for the date you fill it out so if you fill it out at the time of the conversation you don’t have to put in a separate time/date.

The results will print to a spreadsheet for you to have a log.

Finally, share your link with yourself on your desktop.  I put it on my webpage.  It could be a resource in Schoology or you can put the link in a Word document and save the document to your desktop for easy access.

Making Sense of the PARCC “Tech Prep” Tools (Part 1)

ELA

It seems that there are plenty of tools to help you prepare your students for the demands of online testing such as PARCC but what tools should you use and when?  Can any of these tools be implemented into the daily curriculum of your class?  Should these tools be used for teaching computer/tech skills OR should they be used specifically to prepare for THE test?  I try to make sense of this “stuff” for my technology classroom and how to connect with classroom teachers in this post.  I’m not saying I have the answers, I cannot even say how these methods help students prepare or perform on the tests…they haven’t happened yet, but this is how I’m making sense of them.

Recommendation #1 – take the practice test yourself.  Find the grade/subject you teach and take the test closest to your course so you know what is expected and how it works.

http://parcc.pearson.com/practice-tests/

                There are two things teachers will notice when taking a practice test. 

1. Types of questions being asked (what content students need to know)
2. What technology skills they need to be able to complete a task 

I will focus on technology skills in this post because that’s what I teach.  

Different online tools will be helpful for preparing for the new content assessed and the skills needed to complete.

Click and Drag aka Drag and Drop

                Practice tests ask students to find statements in boxes and click on a box and drag it to another location and drop it.  Some students will want to click on it once to select it but actually you have to click, hold in the mouse button, drag, and then release the mouse when the box is moved to the proper location. For students to practice this skill visit:

This onlinepractice allows students to practice highlighting and inserting text in a sample word processor.

Features that are holiday themed on www.abcya.com also allow students to practice

Drag and drop features

http://www.abcya.com/kids_make_a_gingerbread_house.htm

Drag to highlight features

http://www.abcya.com/christmas_word_search.htm

In Ohio Infohio resources are available for many schools/districts/communities.  Using http://www.infohio.org/students/er/grade/gk5 and choosing BookFlix Puzzlers will allow students to practice the drag and drop feature and allow students to practice comprehension after reading a story.

Multiple Choice/Dropdown lists

Google Forms: Sample

                       Make your own see video 

Schoology Tests/Quizzes

Join sample course: 3J9FZ-J4R4K

Make assessments see video

Scroll to see entire page

A lot of this will depend on screen resolution.  Have students practice visiting webpages and use the scroll wheel, click on the scroll bar and drag and use the mouse pad such as on a Chromebook. 

It is important that they can click the scroll bar and drag the scroll as well as use the scroll wheel.  I had a student tell me they couldn’t view the entire page because the mouse was broken…the scroll was broken but the mouse still allowed for scrolling.  Students need to be able to do simple trouble-shooting while testing.

Keying Text

Schoology Discussion Posts

Google Forms

Microsoft Word Text Boxes – using text boxes is important because the tests are not traditional word processors, they are boxes and windows.

Keyboarding

www.typingweb.com/tutor

Dance MatTyping

Videos

Online Computer Literacy Practice: Watch a Video

YouTube www.youtube.com

Digital Video Collection Infohio users

Google Calendar for Work and Home

I used to be addicted to my Outlook calendar.  I color coded everything!  Work events, kids, holidays, birthdays, to do list...EVERYTHING!  The one problem with my Outlook calendar was I couldn't take it with me.  Think 2009.  I did not have a Blackberry or an iPhone.  I did not have money for a phone plan anyway.  So, for Christmas I asked for a PDA.  It needed something that would work with my already established Outlook calendar, and had WiFi access, you know for when I went to Panera Bread or McDonalds. It could NOT rely on a phone plan to work.  So I got a cute little Pocket PC and took it everywhere.  It worked great, and my love affair with Microsoft continued. My husband at the time was using Google calendar already.  His band dates were on Google calendar, his work appointments, and I refused to convert.  "Email me if I need to know what's on your calendar," I would say.

Then it happened.  I got a MacBook.  I went back to school to teach and thought, I need a new computer, so many schools use Macs, I don't have a Mac, I don't know how to use a Mac...I better get in the loop.  Of course the Mac needs the Microsoft Office Suite too.  And it was so.  Problem...alert! Alert!  My Mac that communicated with my PC and shared my Outlook calendar would not communicate with the Pocket PC.  My organizational world was OVER.  I needed a new plan.  That is when I learned to embrace Google Calendar.  

I have 2 Google accounts. One for home, one for work.  I have 5 Google calendars, and share 2 additional calendars, and have access to view 3 other calendars.  It's not as complicated as it sounds because they are all color coded.

One of the best things about Google calendar is my school uses Google calendar as the district calendar so I can quickly save an activity on the district calendar to my own calendar, but only the activities that pertain to me and my building if I want.  

Video How To ...

Sharing Files With Colleagues

I have found to never underestimate the power of sharing.  If you followed my previous tip you are taking a lot of pictures.  Maybe you would like to share them???  Sharing goes beyond pictures.

As a teacher there are a lot of resources that need to be shared and they may not be resources available in the student database.  For example, I'm in the Ohio Resident Educator Program and need to share documents with my mentor.  By using a Dropbox folder I can work on Word Documents downloaded from ODE and save them to a folder local to my computer.  Then I have access to them virtually anywhere and can share the folder with my mentor.  Dropbox is similar to Google Drive installed on your computer but does not try to convert your files to the Google format.  Check out Dropbox

View this video of how it works: Using Dropbox

Another method for sharing is the Google Drive.  Files in the Google Drive can be shared with others to view only or view and edit. I share files with my mentor using Google Drive yet share forms and documents with students and coworkers using Google Drive, especially those documents created in Google Drive.  It doesn't seem necessary for every teacher to collect and update the same data so I collect student favorites in a form and shared it with colleagues so they were in the loop too.

Learn more about collaborating with Google Drive below.

The key to either system is to make sure when the files are shared to edit that you have an understanding that it can be changed or even removed from the folder by the people sharing it.  If you want the files to be viewed and not edited make sure you choose that option. If you want the originals intact but want to allow others to edit a file make sure you make a copy first and share the copy.

And for this Tuesday...happy sharing!

Brainstorming: Near and Far

Last week I decided I wanted to brainstorm ideas for an upcoming project in class.  Each student has a computer so I wanted to do it using their devices.  I considered a Google form but I wanted it to be in real time.  Google forms allow you to see previous responses AFTER you submit if the option is selected. Then I thought about Poll Everywhere but it's so difficult to organize the ideas and work on them later after collecting the data.  That's when a quick Internet search led me to Stormboard.  Stormboard is free to educators through December 2014 so check it out.

Stormboard allows you to collect ideas, color code them, vote on your favorite ideas and organize ideas in a number of creative ways.  I fould for large classes it works best if you only have 4-5 brainstormers at a time but you can enter your idea, rearrange and categorize it then print a report or Wordle of your results.

I created a Stormboard for us to use to brainstorm for fun!  What is your favorite Tech resource for your classroom?  

P.S. you can signup using your school Google account if you have one and have your students do the same.  THEN you can see their official names instead of them making up their own accounts.

P.P.S. I don't get anything for you using this service or following the link.  There is no free space etc.

Connecting your Google Account to Schoology

Start by logging in to Schoology.  If you do not have an account yet you can Sign Up quickly and easily.

Click on Resources at the top of the page. Then select Apps.

 Select Install Apps

Then check the box next to Google Drive (or any other app you would like). 

Click Install button.

Approve authorization

Then connect.  After you connect you will need to login to Google unless you are logged in already in another tab. 

Then viola.  You can pull resources from Google to your Schoology account to share with students or show your students and they can submit Google files in Schoology.