TCC 6-2 Google Classroom Comes to Town

For 2016-2017 at least four schools (LCHS, REMJHS, JPTIS, and JCLES) will have Apps for Education accounts which allow them to use Classroom. So every student has a G-mail account...how does that work? Student id’s are related to their login in a private domain for their school. That domain is needed to be a Google Apps for Education school...the only users of Classroom. All student information can be restricted to that domain...even parents without accounts can’t view things unless they are shared in some other way, like a Google Group.
Google Drive provides storage for all student work. When using Classroom folders are even set up automatically for your classes and for your student work. Work can be done on any of Google’s applications: Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, and My Maps. Not only these, but photos, PDFs and videos can be stored in Drive., and other formats (Office) can be viewed and edited. Students can use Android, iOs, or Windows devices to participate. My Maps and Sites can also be used as alternative ways to make presentations.

TCC 6-2 Google Cardboard

This has been a learning school year. My status changed slightly and I become the mother of 150+ iPads that needed supervision, updating and redistribution...after the Configurator 2 was available. This was a steep learning curve for an Apple newbie.And now we have a school which is beginning the process for Google Classroom (on iPads). So I am again trying to gain a foothold by working on my Google Level 1 Certification.

That preface is to help you understand how I found the Google Cardboard appliances and app while looking for Google Groups to find uses for the discussion and mailing list. So hidden in the MORE of Google's matrix of tools was one I had never heard of...Google Cardboard?

TCC Summer: Summertime Fun?

I am a fan of Alice Keeler's blog, Teacher Tech, which is in My Blog List at the right. She is very knowledgeable in all things Google and shares tutorial information at Teacher Tech. Since our junior high and high schools are going one-to-one with Chromebooks things Google are helpful for those staff members who teach at those schools.
Another site new to me is Google for Education which offers training on the requirements to become a Google Educator. All courses listed are: Android Tablets for Education, Calendar, Chrome,  Chromebooks,  Classroom, Digital Citizenship, Docs Suite, Docs, Drawings, Drive, Forms, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Play for , .Education, Implementing Google Apps, Search, Sheets, Sites, Slides, and YouTube. The advanced portion of training for some of the offered lessons are required for the assessments for Certification, but the basic lessons are also there if you need that help  Each lesson also gives you an

TCC 5-5 Cindy's Links

Classmill describes its course creation site curated learning. It is another site which allows you to gather all the multimedia for your lesson/course for viewing from one site. MIT’s Future of Education report says, "The next generation of student life and learning, supporting the faculty with new instructional roles, introducing flexibility to the curriculum and in time to degree by modularizing course content"

Intel has some terrific Project Based Learning courses. During the one we facilitate with teachers yearly in our school district we look not only at self/formative assessment but we also look at technology to infuse. This Edudemic post, 5 Ways to Use Wordcloud Generators in the Classroom, has teacher contributed ideas including one which marries KWL charts and word clouds. Another Edudemic post, The Ultimate Twitter Guidebook, this with 100 sites giving lots of ideas and links for using Twitter from beginner tips and educator uses to cautions and student apps. Or 30 Innovative Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom  if that seems too much.

TCC 5-5 Project Based Learning with New Tech (PBL)

In August we move 2 more grades into New Tech which also means more PBL. Our district has been involved through Intel which has additional resources for PBL. Intel Engage site is a community which has tools and courses which are free to teaching professionals. Although not  directly connected to New Tech the basic information is convergent....just terminology is different. There is more information on Intel in TCC Issue 4-4.

At the site click circled for videos

I have had no formal New Tech training, but have been previewing the information at their network site: echo.newtechnetwork.org Even without a login it allows you to click on More About Echo above the login space.
  

There are videos covering schools, projects, samples, and reflections of teachers and students.  Two really good project samples are “The Cart Project” and “Cells Gone Wild” (featured) which were both real issue projects for which the students found real answers. If these aren’t part of official training they are worth a look. Several of the videos are student produced.

TCC 5-5 Producing InfoPics

Tony Vincent offers tutorials on lots of tech topics...beginning with Learning in Hand podcasts.

Screen Capture of Tony's Sample from Ted Talk

“A picture is worth a thousand words” may be true, but add a few words to a picture and you have something even more memorable. In his tutorial on infopic tools and how-to’s Tony features samples from Jonathan Nalder* and others. Students with various kinds of devices could use this skill to summarize, define, persuade, or advertise. His suggested tools are: Canva, Rhonna, Mextures, Over, Skitch, Pic Collage, PicLab, Phonto, Pathon, Color Effects, Color Splash Effects, presentation software (Power Point, KeyNote, or Slides), Pixlr, or PicsArt (has call-out speech bubbles to add). These tools are for various brands of devices so you would select what works on the tool you have. The one which works on the most types is Skitch...which also has a Chrome app for our New
Tech people.

TCC 5-5 Classroom Tech Infusion Classflow/ActivInspire Merge Tutorials

Promethean is improving Classflow...it will look different.  Since our Tech Cluster (Florence School District 3 PD) emphasis featured using it with ActivInspire 2.0 this isn’t too stressful. 

For those entusiasts who wanted to deeper look at what that Classflow/ActivInspire 2.0 combo would do here are some tutorials that will add to what we looked at in March:
How to use the Classflow teacher remote. I was not aware when we started that the remote worked with the software, also. I mentioned it to some, but assumed it was for Classflow. Woo Hoo...it works with the software, too.The app is available for Android, Apple, and Windows devices. A reason for either allowing some teacher phone use, data financing for personal phone use, or providing handhelds for teachers.
How to connect tablets & computers. This tutorial give you the information we talked about quickly during the introduction. It also mentions where to get the student app for those with tablets.