Technology Newsletter April 2015

Happy April!

I really like using this blog as a way to introduce resources that could be beneficial to instruction in your room. These are meant to be an intro and overview. Please feel free to set up a meeting where we could go over any of these together.

Kahoot!

I shared this at one of the afterschool PD sessions but it is worth mentioning for teachers looking for a free and fun student response system.

The teacher site is:

https://create.kahoot.it/

This is where you would create your free account and set up your first interactive discussion, quiz, or survey.

Kahoot! is game based. Students earn points based on their answers but also the speed of their response. There is a leaderboard of the top 5 students that is displayed during the activity. You also see the number of responses to each answer so you can use this as a way to correct any misunderstandings.

The students would log in at:

https://kahoot.it/

They use the code provided. Students do not see the questions on their screen. You display them on your projector or television in front of the room. The student device acts as a response system.

I created a short video walking through their sample Kahoot!

TACKK!

https://tackk.com/education  

(Make sure to include the "education" on the end of the url.)

Tackk is a new web tool on the scene that allows you to create collaborative web content. It's free for teachers and students and has a wonderful education community with ideas on how to use it in instruction.

https://tackk.com/@education/tackks is their education specific blog that has a wealth of instructional ideas for how to use this in the classroom. 

https://tackk.com/tackk-edu-advocates is a direct link to educators using Tackk where you can see examples of ideas that might inspire your own classroom use. 

Tackk is very easy to use and it is free!

Tackk Video1

Tackk Video2

Tackk Video3

Tackk Education Resources

Reflector 2

http://www.airsquirrels.com/

Reflector is an interesting piece of software. It allows you to use your computer like an Apple TV or a Chromecast to display content from portable devices. They just updated to Reflector 2 and it has a free trial. It's only $14.99. I highly recommend you try out the free trial to see if it meets the needs of your classroom. The new version is much more stable and does allow you to record what the device is displaying on screen. I currently use it on my computer when I make videos for staff on what content looks like on an iPad or Chromebook. 

Trouble Reporting Tips

One of our goals in 2015 is to improve the error reporting process so we get to your needs faster. This requires a little help from you. Please make sure you report issues early. If something is a reoccuring issue, please let us know so we can help. Don't let it get to the point of frustration. 

For High School: Please email HSTrouble.Reports@westg.org

For Elementary and Middle School: Please contact your AV/Tech Supplemental Holder. They will put is a Trouble Ticket that will make us aware of the issue. This is important because it allows us to organize and keep track of progress.

Information that we need from you:

Date: 

Time:

Room Number:

What is the problem you are having:

Were there any error messages? 

What were they?

Does this happen all the time or in specific situations?

The more you tell us, the faster we will pin down the actual problem and be able to resolve you issue. 

HOW TO SCHEDULE A TIME TO MEET?

The easiest way to contact me is through email at sean.whelan@westg.org. Please let me know what you'd like to meet about, your room number, free periods, and any other info that might be helpful to me in order to prepare for our meeting. I'd love to meet with you to see if I can help facilitate any issue you might be having. Also, if there is something I share that you would like to implement in your classroom or with your team, please let me know. I would be thrilled to help.

Technology Newsletter March 16, 2015

NEOTIE February 2015

Thank you to the staff that attended the free NEOTIE Educational Technology Conference at Beachwood. I know the weather was crazy but the sessions were fantastic. I know I sent this in a previous email to staff but wanted to mention again that resources from every session are available at http://neotie.org/ . There is literally something for every classroom. There will be another event coming in the future. I will announce it to the staff as we get closer.

15 Awesome Websites

NEOTIE was filled with awesome sessions. 

One of my favorites was: 

15 Awesome Web Sites : You can use in your classroom immediately.

I am a big fan of sessions that allow teacher's access to free technology resources because we are all facing tight budgets.

One of my favorites was Movenote. Movenote is a sight that allows you to take documents and turn them into a video presentation. This is a great way to introduce or review lesson material with your students. You can choose to put yourself into the video or just the audio. It's a great way to insure that your presentation of the material travels with the student.

Another is EDpuzzle. Edpuzzle is a terrific tool for taking video content from Youtube, TeacherTube, Vimeo or even your own content and turning them into an interactive tool. You can add quizzes, audio and even edit the video to match your classroom needs.

InstaGrok.com is a site that provides searchable concept maps on a wide variety of topics. You can can customize and share them. It has a free version you can use immediately.

These are just 3 of the 15 resources contained in the presentation above. I encourage you to click on it and find something new and exciting for your classroom. Please let me know if I can help you with any of these.

PARCC and TIDE Testing

Our staff should be very proud of the amazing job done during the first year of online testing. There have been a few glitches along the way but in almost all cases, they were the equivalent of a trip to the pencil sharpener to fix a broken pencil. This only happens due to teamwork. Every department and staff member had a role in preparation and implementation. Thank you for the extra time and leadership that each of you put into making this a great experience for our students. I had the chance to see how this was working at all 4 buildings. Thank you for the quick reporting of issues and the time you spent preparing for testing. We were able to stay very close to all schedules due to your support.

Our students also should be commended because they were incredibly flexible and handled this new process and any issues with behavior that says alot about how we teach our kids. This is brand new to everybody. We have a great deal to be proud of. 

Trouble Reporting Tips

One of our goals in 2015 is to improve the error reporting process so we get to your needs faster. This requires a little help from you. Please make sure you report issues early. If something is a reoccuring issue, please let us know so we can help. Don't let it get to the point of frustration. 

For High School: Please email HSTrouble.Reports@westg.org

For Elementary and Middle School: Please contact your AV/Tech Supplemental Holder. They will put is a Trouble Ticket that will make us aware of the issue. This is important because it allows us to organize and keep track of progress.

Information that we need from you:

Date: 

Time:

Room Number:

What is the problem you are having:

Were there any error messages? 

What were they?

Does this happen all the time or in specific situations?

The more you tell us, the faster we will pin down the actual problem and be able to resolve you issue. 

How to schedule a time to meet?

The easiest way to contact me is through email at sean.whelan@westg.org. Please let me know what you'd like to meet about, your room number, free periods, and any other info that might be helpful to me in order to prepare for our meeting. I'd love to meet with you to see if I can help facilitate any issue you might be having.

Technology Newsletter January 15, 2015

Welcome to 2015

As the first newsletter of the year, I want to welcome you back but also use this as a way to share some new tools and helpful tips for the remainder of the school year. Please review the section on Trouble Reporting. We need your help to improve the process while meeting your needs.

The Answer Pad for Formative and Summative

I am always on the lookout for new tools to share. This one came from January's Ideastream meeting. The Answer Pad (http://theanswerpad.com/) offers a way to use existing paper quizzes with a digital tool for answer completion and grading. There is a free version and a paid version. I am always a fan of sites that allow a usable free component to allow teachers to really explore and benefit. The site has plenty of information if you want to try it out. Please contact me, if I can help with any implementation.

Animoto

https://animoto.com/education/classroom

This was another tool from Ideastream. Teachers can sign up for a free Plus account that allows unlimited videos and presentations. This is a great tool for creating and using digital content in the classroom. There are some short videos at the bottom of the page that show how teachers are using this with their own classrooms.

Powtoon

https://www.powtoon.com/edu-home/

This was mentioned at Ideastream. I shared it at one of last year's PD sessions. There is a free education version. I do encourage you to look for education versions of tools that you encounter on the web. The education version usually provides premium features to educators and no extra cost.

Powtoon is another fun presentation tool that allows you to create animated videos and presentations. The nice part about tools like this and Animoto is that they are fast, easy to use and save time. Often it is hard to create content like this due to the amount of time involved. I do encourage you to share creations that you make for students with others who teach the same content. You can divide the work and save time.

Ideastream Education Resources for the Classroom

I would recommend bookmarking this site for free resources. 

http://www.ideastream.org/education/educators#ed-classroom 

Ideastream Instructional Resources for Educators is updated regularly with new content. If you are looking for streaming video content, check out PBS Learning Media and Ideastream. They have full programs and clips from a wide range of educational topics.

There is a direct link to Infohio. If you haven't taken a look, it is loaded with resources for teachers K-12. There are various search functions on the site. There are many interactive and digital opportunities.

The remaining content links range from content for really young students to high school. 

Trouble Reporting Tips

One of our goals in 2015 is to improve the error reporting process so we get to your needs faster. This requires a little help from you. Please make sure you report issues early. If something is a reoccuring issue, please let us know so we can help. Don't let it get to the point of frustration. 

For High School: Please email HSTrouble.Reports@westg.org

For Elementary: Please contact your AV/Tech Supplemental Holder. They will put is a Trouble Ticket that will make us aware of the issue. This is important because it allows us to organize and keep track of progress.

Information that we need from you:

Date: 

Time:

Room Number:

What is the problem you are having:

Were there any error messages? 

What were they?

Does this happen all the time or in specific situations?

The more you tell us, the faster we will pin down the actual problem and be able to resolve you issue. 

Newsletter December 23, 2014

Last Newsletter of 2014

I wanted to quickly wish everyone a safe and Happy Holidays! From the web hits, this newsletter is getting a great deal of traffic. Feedback is always welcome, so please let me know what you are finding beneficial.

Google Updates

There have been a number of recent Google Updates. I wanted to share a few that I think will benefit.

1) Sending email attachments from Google Drive as true attachments: If you have ever had trouble with others being able to download or access attachments when you send them through Gmail, this recent update will make you very happy.

http://www.thegooru.com/share-google-drive-files-attachments-gmail/

2) Docs, Sheets and Slides are coming to the app launcher: Currently, we have to go to Google Drive first before creating new Docs, Sheets and Slides. This update will allow you to access this feature directly from the launcher. Great news!

http://www.thegooru.com/docs-sheets-slides-coming-apps-launcher/

3) 7 Great Add ons (Check out the updates to Doctopus with amazing new features):

http://www.thegooru.com/7-of-the-best-new-add-ons-for-google-docs-and-sheets/

4) The new Google Sheets adds some fantastic new features for those who have wanted more from their spreadsheets.

http://www.thegooru.com/guide-to-the-new-google-sheets/

5) Google Forms has add ons that make the survey tool even more useful:

http://www.thegooru.com/add-custom-features-to-google-forms-with-add-ons/

Trouble Reporting

As we head into the new year, I want to remind everyone of the importance of proper trouble reporting. Both elementary buildings and the middle school have AV/Tech supplemental holders. If you are having issues in your room with something not working properly, internet access problems, or any other tech concerns, please make sure to report them to the AV/Tech. This will make sure that a trouble report is created. If you are at the high school, please use the email address HSTrouble.Reports@westg.org.

Some things to consider:

1) Please provide as much information as possible. I know it may seem like "it doesn't work" is enough but the more details that we have make it easier to recreate your issue so it can be fully resolved. 

Ex: If the problem occurred with a specific web site, give us that information. If there were any errors on screen, please share those. Was the machine working fine outside of this issue? Was this the first time this happened?

2) If there are multiple machines in the room, please identify which machines had the the issue. Sometimes problems are machine specific. 

3) Did you do anything to try and troubleshoot? Ex: Did you reboot the machine? Did you try another browser? Did you exit and relaunch the program?

4) Have you reported this before? If so, when and to who?

5) Best times to reach you.

Our goal is always to get you up and running so that you can use the tools you need for instruction. The more information you give us, the faster we can accomplish that goal.

How to schedule a time to meet?

The easiest way to contact me is through email at sean.whelan@westg.org. Please let me know what you'd like to meet about, your room number, free periods, and any other info that might be helpful to me in order to prepare for our meeting. I'd love to meet with you to see if I can help facilitate any issue you might be having.

Newsletter November 3, 2014

Happy November!

I haven't had a chance to do a newsletter in awhile and want to get this back on a monthly schedule. I found some great web sites that might help you with your instructional goals. I also found some tips

Exit Ticket

http://exitticket.org/

Exit Ticket is a free response system for creating student assessments. It's made to deliver preassessments, and exit tickets to give you feedback on student progress. You can make your own assessments or choose from those shared by other teachers.

Open Ed

https://www.opened.io/

Open Ed is a Common Core resource library. There are many shared, free lessons plans, videos, games and assessments. It is searchable by standard and grade level. You can also create a class to share content with your students.

EduCanon

https://www.educanon.com/

EduCanon is an interesting educational site. It allows you to take video content, such as YouTube videos, and embed questions that go along with the content. You can assign this to the students and get a question by question breakdown of student performance. It's pretty cool.

Tips for managing a 1:1 Classroom

These were some interesting ideas that I found in an article and wanted to share.

In a 1:1 setting where every student has a device, you’ll need to provide your students with a list of procedures for using it in class. Items to consider include:

• Care and appropriate handling of the device (hug it like you love it)
• Appropriate use of web resources
• Expectations for bringing or keeping a device charged
• Directions for accessing class content on a class website or LMS (Such as Google Classroom)
• Procedures for online testing
• Procedures and file naming conventions for sharing files with the teacher and others
• Red light/green light signals to alert students when they should not be using the device or to let them know when device usage is appropriate
• Consequences for being off task
• Basic troubleshooting guidelines (Ex: rebooting the device first)

Google Tips

With time demands, I thought it might be helpful to have access to these Google "cheat sheets". The first few are for Google Apps and the rest relate to Chromebooks. I thought they might be helpful. If any might benefit your students, copy and paste them to your own document.

Types of files Google Apps Converts

Import/export options

Google Docs allows you to easily import and store any file format. In addition, with many of the file formats you have the option to convert the file into a Google Doc for editing and collaboration. After you're done collaborating and have a finished product, you can even export the documents out to be used with other word processing, spreadsheet or presentation programs.

	Docs	Spreadsheets	Presentations	Drawings
Import & Convert	Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx) OpenDocument text (.odt) StarOffice text (.sxw) Rich text (.rtf) Plain text (.txt) HTML (.htm, .html)	Microsoft Excel (.xls, .xlsx) OpenDocument spreadsheet (.ods) Comma-separated values (.csv, .txt)	Microsoft Powerpoint (.ppt, .pptx, .pps)	Windows Metafile (.wmf)
Export	Microsoft Word(.doc) OpenDocument text (.odt) Rich text (.rtf) Plain text (.txt) HTML (.htm, .html) PDF	Microsoft Excel (.xls) OpenDocument spreadsheet (.ods) Comma-separated values (.csv, .txt) PDF, HTML	Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt) PDF (.pdf) Text (.txt)	PNG, JPEG, SVG, PDF

Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V For most copying and pasting, you can use the familiar keyboard shortcuts, Ctrl-C (Copy) and Ctrl-V (Paste). This even works when going from one doc type to another. But there are a couple of exceptions in which keyboard shortcuts don't work as well (yet). In these cases, you should use the server clipboard menu:

• If you're copying between presentations and another document type
• If you want to copy on one computer and paste on another
• If you want to copy something you aren't going to paste right away

"Save As" formats in Google Apps

When viewing a Google Drive Doc, Sheet, Slide or Drawing, click Download as from the File menu, and select a format.

The available formats are:

• For Docs: HTML, RTF, Word, Open Office, PDF, Text file.
• For Sheets: CSV, HTML, ODS, PDF, XLSX, TXT (only for a single sheet)
• For presentations: PDF, PPTX, TXT (or individual slide image exports)
• For drawings: PNG, JPEG, SVG, PDF

File types that can convert to various Google Docs

Compatible file types

These are the file types that can be converted to a Google document, spreadsheet, or presentation:

• For documents: .doc, .docx, .html, plain text (.txt), .rtf
• For spreadsheets: .xls, .xlsx, .ods, .csv, .tsv, .txt, .tab
• For presentations: .ppt, .pps, .pptx
• For drawings: .wmf
• For OCR: .jpg, .gif, .png, .pdf (This is where you can convert pictures/images with text into text in some cases.)

Chromebooks Tips

At some of the recent PD sessions, questions were asked about completing certain laptop type tasks on a Chromebook. I thought these would be helpful.

Keyboard features

Shortcut keys

The Chromebook keyboard contains a new row of shortcut keys at the top and a Search key. These keys make it easy for you and your students to navigate between pages and windows and easily control settings like volume and screen brightness. The Search key launches a new Search and makes it easy to find information fast. Depending on your device model, some keys may differ or not be available.

A typical Chromebook keyboard does not have a Caps Lock key or a Delete key.

Chromebook keyboard features

	Go to the previous page in your browsing history
	Go to the next page in your browsing history
	Reload/Refresh your current page
	Open your page in full-screen (immersive) mode. In immersive mode you will still be able to access the omnibar and tabs when you move your pointer to the top of the screen.
	Switch to your next window with the Window key
	Decrease screen brightness
	Increase screen brightness
	Mute
	Decrease the volume
	Increase the volume
	Search the web from the address bar. Note: This key is located on the side, where you'd normally find the Caps Lock key.

Touchpad

Use the touchpad to move the pointer and select items on the screen. Tap-to-click is enabled by default on your Chromebook and allows you to tap instead of clicking down on the touchpad. You can adjust how your touchpad works by going to Settings from the Chrome menu or Status area.

1. To move the pointer, move your finger across the touchpad.
2. To click, press down on the lower half of the touchpad.
3. To right click, click the touchpad with two fingers.
4. To scroll, place two fingers on the touchpad and move them up and down to scroll vertically, left and right to scroll horizontally.
5. To swipe, quickly move two fingers left or right to go backward or forward on web pages or while using apps.
6. To drag and drop, click the item you want to move with one finger. With a second finger, move the item. Release both fingers to drop the item at its new location.

If you or your students have difficulty using a touchpad, a wired or wireless mouse can be attached to your Chromebook.

Keyboard shortcuts

Many keyboard shortcuts are available to quickly accomplish tasks on a Chromebook.

Keyboard overlay

Use <ctrl> + <alt> + ? to see an onscreen keyboard overlay of all available keyboard shortcuts. Some of the most helpful shortcuts include:

1. Caps lock - Alt + Search key
2. Deleting text - Use the backspace key or Ctrl + x
3. Screenshot of the entire screen - Ctrl + Next Window key
4. Screenshot of a part of the screen - Ctrl + Shift + Next Window key
5. Task manager - Shift + Esc
6. Open file manager - Alt + Shift + m
7. Launch apps on the shelf - Alt + 1 (to launch the first app on the shelf), Alt + 2 (to launch the second app), etc.
8. Rotate screen - Ctrl + Shift + Refresh key
9. Lock screen - Ctrl + Shift + L
10. Open Chrome menu - Alt + e

Logout - Ctrl + Shift + q

How to schedule a time to meet?

The easiest way to contact me is through email at sean.whelan@westg.org. Please let me know what you'd like to meet about, your room number, free periods, and any other info that might be helpful to me in order to prepare for our meeting. I'd love to meet with you to see if I can help facilitate any issue you might be having.