Quick Google Tips from #METC15: Drive, Docs, & Calendar

In my last post I listed some of my favorite Google things from #METC15 a few weeks ago. Today, I'd like to share some specifics. 

The following tips and tricks were presented in the "Google Like a Ninja" session led by Greg Lawrence (@greglawrence) and Michael McCann (@mccann1776), two Google Certified Teachers and instructional technology coaches in the Wentzville School District. Their "Google Ninja Showdown" slideshow is shared here, though it only lists what they demonstrated. Their presentation was a live demo in Google Apps, a showdown of rounds in each app with the audience voting on a winner (when they could connect to the internet, that is).

DRIVE - Force your students to COPY a file to their drive:

Sharing docs in Drive via a shareable link is a lifesaver for many of us. I love that uploading a document to Drive and using that link on Moodle lets me edit or update the file for a new school year without the multi-step process of uploading it to Moodle again. 

If I want every student to have her own copy of the file to edit (a worksheet, for example), but don't want all of my students to edit MY copy, I can follow these steps to simplify things in class when they need to access the file:

1. In Drive, access the file you want to share (you can open it or simply select the file within drive)
2. Click the SHARE button 
3. Click "Get shareable link" and change the sharing settings to "anyone with the link" and "can view" or "People at [your organization] with the link can view" 
4. Click the COPY LINK button or "Get Shareable Link" to copy the URL to the clipboard
5. Click Done
6. Go to the website, doc, email, or wherever you want to post your link
7. Paste the URL into the space
8. Note where the word "edit" is in the sharing URL:
   
9. Replace the word "edit" with "copy" in the URL 
10. When your students click the link, they will be prompted with this screen: 
    
11. Students click the MAKE A COPY button and the file is now saved in their Drives

DOCS - Use "Replace with" codes for grading comments:

A simple tip for giving feedback in a Google Doc was to create your own special codes that Google recognizes and replaces with longer text. Helpful for those commonly used phrases when grading papers. In TurnItIn, we make them QuickMarks (or they are provided in the pre-made sets). This is a way to create a version of those marks in Google Docs.

1. Open a Google Doc
2. Under Tools, click on Preferences, which will show you this pop-up window: 
   
3. You can see some of the commonly "replace with" codes. Add your own! Some examples:
   
4. Use these codes when adding feedback for your students... but only in the body of the document. I thought our presenters said you could use the "replace with" feature in comments, but I cannot get them to work... I find that to be a bummer. Hopefully you can find other ways to use custom "replace with" options.

CALENDAR - Share attachments with your events:

I guess I never paid attention to the "Add attachment" option when editing the details of an event on Google Calendar before METC. Now that I'm a Google Ninja, though, I'm loving it. I see this as a great tool for my teachers who put their assignments on a Google Calendar that is embedded in their Moodle page (CJ teachers - I'd love to help you do this!). If they store their homework files (reading assignments, worksheets, project descriptions, etc.) in Google Drive and share them from there anyways, this is a great option. Also great for having people sign up for time slots for conferences, to bring food to an event, etc.

1. Make sure you have the appropriate sharing settings applied to the Doc/Sheets/Slides/etc. file you are attaching
2. Open your calendar
3. Create your event or choose a previously existing one and click "Edit Event"
4. On the event details page, click "Add attachment" next to Attachment (about halfway down the page, just above the Event color choices)
5. Choose a file you already have in your Drive or click Upload to add a file from your computer
6. Click the SELECT button
7. The file name shows up next to "Attachment" on the event details page
8. Click the red SAVE button at the top of the page
9. Now when students view the event on the calendar and click "more details", the attachment will appear as a link in the window

Stay tuned for more #METC15 sharing - Google and beyond!

Google Domination at #METC15

I look forward to the Midwest Educational Technology Community Conference (METC) for approximately 362 days each year; give me a day to recover from it and I'm counting down to the next one.



My time at METC this year ended up overwhelmingly Google-influenced. Yes, I chose to attend a few sessions that had Google in the title. But even if the session wasn't declared to be all about Google, there was some kind of Google influence. Maybe the fact that Jaime Casap (@jcasap), Global Education Evangelist at Google, Inc., was a keynote speaker had something to do with it, I don't know. Check out his address here - well worth a watch! He was full of insights, an engaging speaker, and really delved into the nitty gritty of the past and future of education and technology. Some favorite nuggets:

This generation of students doesn’t think who can I work for? They think who can I work with to have an impact. @jcasap #metc15
— Steven W. Anderson (@web20classroom) February 11, 2015

We used to have to call the Internet. And the Internet was busy. #METC15

— Stacey Kenney (@stacey_kenney) February 11, 2015

"Education isn't broken... The world it was set up for just doesn't exist anymore" @jcasap #metc15

— Michelle Fank (@mfankopedia) February 11, 2015

#Technology is not the silver bullet. #Education is the silver bullet for lasting change - @jcasap #METC15 pic.twitter.com/Rv0qJPkfGS

— Drew McAllister (@drewmca) February 11, 2015

The devices kids are using today are the worst devices they will ever use in their lives. #metc15 pic.twitter.com/X9nXdQbGJ1

— Dr. Justin Tarte (@justintarte) February 11, 2015

I'll be devoting a few future blog posts to more detailed explorations of favorite tools, tricks, and concepts from the various presentations. And any resources from sessions are available on the METC website for anyone to view, so take a look! But in the meantime, a rundown of JUST the Google topics/tools I loved would be...

• Using "replace with" codes for adding quick comments (so simple!)
• Lab-scheduler add-on for Sheets
• g(Math) add-on for forms
• Using Drawings within Docs to format a template
• Changing the word "edit" to "copy" at the end of your sharing URL to force students to make a copy of a shared file
• Adding attachments (collaborative docs?) to events in calendar
• Research tool
• Using Google forms for a plethora of formative assessment: exit slips, 3-2-1, performance rubrics, quick writes, etc.
• Google Drive Template Gallery for school-wide document templates
• Doctopus and Goobric (mind blown!)
• Saving Forms to a tablet or smartphone home screen for quick, on-the-go access to save classroom observations, to-do lists, etc.

I'll add some links above as I find them. And I'm excited to share more details about the above tools and tricks. 

For now, I'll just leave you with this...

Turn it in to TurnItIn in Moodle

Nothing makes me happier at work than a teacher getting more excited than me about something in technology. Last Thursday was a really happy day for me.

After a few weeks of silly errors and issues, I finally had our new TurnItIn Moodle Direct integration ready to deploy and was playing around with a TurnItIn rubric when a teacher looked over my shoulder and asked if she could watch what I was doing. This prompted me to explain my latest project - encouraging more people to use our TurnItIn subscription by letting them use TurnItIn from within Moodle. And her response was my favorite kind. Excited about this new prospect, she went directly back to her desk and not only created her own first TurnItIn assignment in Moodle, complete with grading form, but also told the rest of her PLC right away. And got THEM excited for it.

I thought I was going to have to beg people to try this. Apparently not.

So why do this? 

The reasons to use TurnItIn are numerous. Paperless assignments, originality checking, online grading, digital portfolios, and data collection are a few. Since I started using TurnItIn ten years ago, I have seen vast improvements to the GradeMark program, especially the new Grade Anything platform that allows teachers to grade any kind of file, presentation, performance, etc within GradeMark. The iPad app is something I would have loved eight years ago when I was lamenting my decision to collect essays only via TurnItIn, but was headed for a twelve hour car ride with no internet connection - with the iPad app, you don't need an internet connection once you sync a set of assignments. Easy. Lovely.

Now it's even easier to use here at CJ. No need for teachers or students to log into another account to use the main features of TurnItIn. For everyday use, they can simply create and upload assignments via Moodle... which is an essential part of almost every class here. Logging into TurnItIn will still be useful to gather data from GradeMark Reports, but it isn't necessary every day, nor is it needed by the students. 

From the reaction I've gotten from just a few teachers, I'm thinking this will be a good thing.

Resources:

• TurnItIn's Moodle Direct page containing...
• Instructor Manual
• Student Manual
• Training Videos
• FAQ
• TurnItIn Product Demonstration Videos

Social Media: What Teens Can Teach Us

The first thing I did when I opened by computer today was read "tweets" from sophomores in the Honors World Literature class here at CJ. They were tasked with summarizing sections of Oedipus Rex in 140 characters or less and to share them in a forum on their Moodle page. I had helped the teacher design the assignment earlier in the week, suggesting a discussion forum on Moodle as a venue for students to share/turn in their Tweets. 

Though the students mostly ended up paraphrasing instead of summarizing, the result of the assignment was a "feed" of "tweets" that both captured the essence of the play's drama (they were working with the end of the play - secrets revealed, eyes gouged out, etc.) and displayed a witty use of that simple symbol that has taken over social media - the hashtag. I had to share a few of them here:

The teacher who gave this assignment was pleased with the results and is considering make it a regular task in the class - good practice with an essential skill and a little bit of fun make for a good assignment in my eyes. That the students embraced this assignment and got creative with these hashtags signifies a victory - and I'm pretty sure the teacher (not on Twitter or Facebook... or any social media, if I recall correctly) learned something about Twitter and hashtags via this simple assignment.

************

A bit later, another colleague stopped by my desk to share a blog post with me... and it was very enlightening. I'm sure it has made its way around social media already, since it is all about social media, but I'd still like to share it here. And wow, did it make me feel old and out of it...

The author, Andrew Watts (@thatswattsup), gives an overview of what he has observed about social media from the perspective of teens - and between his initial article and a follow-up post, he covers all the big ones.

I hadn't heard of many of the apps and platforms he explains, and many of them just don't seem relevant to me at this stage in my life. But as an educator working with teens and technology, it's good information to have.

Time to go exploring...

Small victories with Google Sites

I spent the spring and summer creating a website that would be home base for a technology professional development program at CJ. I created it using Google Sites, partially because I was modeling it after a program that had been done on Google Sites and partially because I just wanted to explore yet another of Google's products.

I'm a little obsessed now.

I know that my work isn't the most complex when it comes to  web design. I still haven't learned HTML code (when I asked a friend who works in web publishing for a big newspaper about recommended font and font size for a text heavy website, his response that his paper's "tags are 1.4em on a line height of 1.6em" left me dumbfounded). And I still don't understand a lot of what goes on in the background of websites regarding analytics and search engines. But for designing a site that is really only meant for internal use at work, it was an excellent tool for this amateur.

The Tech Charge Challenge website is staying private right now, so I made a copy of the website (small victory when I discovered how!) to make public and removed any personal data from teachers. That's what I've linked here. It isn't perfect (still needs a few tweaks and tutorials), but I'm pretty proud.

A few weeks ago, I decided to make another, much simpler, website as a home for any and all technology-related professional development resources and opportunities at CJ. Small victories all over the place as I set up this page. I created links using images to represent my main websites. I embedded a Google calendar on an "announcement" page. I even figured out how to give only teachers at CJ permission to edit a "list" page (and only that page) so they can add web tools to the list. Now I'm ready to put tools into the list and find a reason to use other templates.

Sometimes on a Monday, we just need to celebrate those small victories.


For more info about Google Sites, check out...

• Beginner's Guide to Creating a Site from Google Site's Help Center
• Mary Fran's Getting Started with Google Sites (a Google Site from a Google Certified Teacher)
• 47 Page Guide to Google Sites for Teachers from Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers

Curious how you can use Google Sites in the classroom? Check out...

• How to Manage Classroom Digital Portfolios by Using Page-level Permissions in Google Sites from Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers
• 5 Ways to Use Google Sites in Schools from Richard Byrne
• Google Sites for Teacher Web Pages and Student Projects from Flipped Education - this page contains links to many example pages and resources

Sharing some SAMR examples

Substitution.

Augmentation.

Modification.

Redefinition.

SAMR

I recently introduced this acronym to the CJ faculty and asked everyone to reflect on where their teaching generally falls in this... spectrum? Is that the word? Like Bloom's good old Taxonomy, I find that our use of technology can and should fall in each of the "levels" at different times, but we do need to reach for redefinition when possible and applicable.

I shared the following videos and resources on an internal website:

• A YouTube playlist of four videos
• Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything - SAMR
• Excerpt from Ruben R. Puentedura TPCK and SAMR – Models for Enhancing Technology Integration (2008)
• Flowchart of the SAMR model from ICTEvangelist

However, some colleagues expressed interest in more examples; hence, this blog post.

Many of the explanations online are either general descriptions of the framework or use what seems to be the easiest concrete example to demonstrate - a writing assignment. Math and science teachers in particular wanted examples of how it can apply more specifically to their disciplines. The list below gives more examples - some specific to math and science, some general.

• Kathy Schrock's Kaffeeklotsch - "SAMR model musings"
• SAMR in a 1:1 Math Classroom blog post from a teacher - gives some specific examples of how SAMR can apply to math
• SAMR Lesson Design Presentation from aharris425
• The SAMR Model on Apps-a-Daisy (blog) - quick chart shows examples of SAMR use in math
• SAMR Examples Prezi by Michael Hornback - gives examples of SAMR applied to English and math
• EdofICT wiki page of SAMR Examples across the curriculum
• SAMR: Model, Metaphor, & Mistakes blog post from Tech Tips for Education blog 
• Using SAMR to Teach Above the Line blog post from GettingSmart.com - gives an interesting visual representation of SAMR in a history project

Have any other good examples you'd want to share? Comment below!

Thanks, Kathy Schrock! I want to use PowToon now!

The ALS ice bucket challenge has been blowing up my personal Facebook newsfeed. I've seen quite a few fun videos, including ones from coworkers. I've escaped being called out... so far.

Scrolling through my Twitter feed (@mfankopedia) tonight, I came across the following tweet:

My "virtual" ice bucket challenge response! http://t.co/g5CWiRRvkR #icebucketchallenge
— Kathy Schrock (@kathyschrock) August 21, 2014

Watch her video. It's awesome. I love the hand sliding things in and out of the frame.

I had never seen PowToon before. Excited to show it to teachers and make my own PowToons. Just logged in using my Google+ account, which makes it easy (you can also use LinkedIn or Facebook, or create a separate log on). Once in, I can choose from ready-made PowToons or start from scratch; dynamic presentations (slides?) are coming soon. Excited for the beginning of the school year chaos to calm down so I can explore.

For now I await what I assume to be the inevitable ALS ice bucket challenge...

I love Edutopia: Sharing a blog post about tech in the classroom

Quick share, then I promise I'll get back to my "real" work for today. While researching just now, I visited Edutopia.org, which is one of my favorite ed tech websites. In my former life as an English teacher, I loved receiving the print copies of Edutopia in my mailbox and was bummed when I read that it would be discontinued in 2010. Published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, it was a free magazine full of articles and ideas (and ads for amazing technology!) that inspired me to try new things with technology in the classroom.

I have come to terms with the loss of those colorful pages in hand as I have personally rethought the way I publish resources for my colleagues (formerly in an emailed newsletter formatted in Publisher, now here in this blog and via various email updates... hopefully linking them to this blog) and have discontinued my personal newspaper subscription because I just wasn't getting around to reading it, instead getting the highlights from social media. But I still miss the magazine and my newspaper. They just aren't always the most logical options these days.

I digress. Edutopia.org. The top headline today was a blog post titled "The Digital Lives of Teens: 'If You Don't Have a Plan for Them, They Will Have a Plan for You'". Well, of course that caught my attention. Blogger Matt Levinson, a school administrator and author of From Fear to Facebook: One School's Journey, begins with a story from a TV show to get his point across - we have to meet the students where they are with technology. It's a challenge to do so, but so essential today.

I just want to leave that link for you. A quick read, entertaining, and good to keep in mind as we turn the corner on the July 4th holiday, which to me has always signaled the turning point of summer - after this, it's the down slope headed back to another school year...

It's all about being a good digital citizen

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm working on a large project right now. A project that is awesome, but a time suck. Every aspect of it has me jumping online, looking for resources, ideas, tools, etc., and those just lead me down new rabbit holes that get me excited for all the new things I discover. Today, I'm investigating the topic of digital accountability. It's a BIG one. So important. So simple, yet so complex.

In my meandering through the interwebs, a Google search led me to a Pinterest board, which led me to a blog post that contained an infographic I liked. Of course, that led me to clicking on the link to the original source of the infographic, which just led me to another blog I want to follow. Phew. So much.

Sharing this infographic because I think it really simplifies all of the ways we can be responsible digital citizens. Thanks to Mia on An Ethical Island for sharing it... and all of her work. She has all of her infographics in a shared Dropbox account and licensed under Creative Commons under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. (share for any non-commercial use - no editing). How generous! I'll be adding her blog to my reading list...

URL: http://anethicalisland.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/digital-citizenship/

Edcamp Excitement

Just a quick post about my experience today at my first unconference, ConnectED Leaders sponsored by ConnectED Learning. It was a short, half-day conference, which was actually the perfect length for me today (middle of the summer). Three sessions at 45 minutes each were enough to get into some interesting conversations, share some of my own insights and projects, pick up some ideas, and leave energized for my summer projects and next school year.

The unconference layout had me a little nervous. I felt like I should put something up on the board, but two things held me back. One, my brain just wasn't working - I couldn't come up with anything to discuss. Sad, I know. Two, there were already great session topics up and I didn't want to miss any of them, especially when I saw the names of some of the facilitators, who I had seen present at METC and/or followed on Twitter.

One of the few rules of an unconference is the rule of two feet - if you don't like a session you are in, get up and leave. Well, I followed that rule today. Twice. It wasn't that I didn't like the sessions; they just weren't as relevant to me as I had hoped... and having my TweetDeck open showed me that a more beneficial conversation for me might be going on down the hall. It felt awkward, getting up and walking out of a discussion that only had a dozen or so people in it, but in both instances, I'm glad I did. Grateful that they put that rule out there from the get-go. I knew the facilitators wouldn't be offended.

And the networking! I left there with a bunch of new Twitter followers (@mfankopedia), even more names to look up and follow, and an anticipation of the next time I get to interact with these people in person again. I joined an entire new professional learning network that can last long past 11:30 this morning. One of my new Twitter friends got me excited for EdCampSEMO this fall - it's only an hour away, so I might actually swing it. Missouri Summit on Google Education is also on my calendar for the fall, and EdCampSTL and METC are definite for me next February. Until then, there's Twitter and #moedchat, #connectedleader, and various other hashtags to follow, along with the new Twitter handles I'm following.

Speaking of people I follow, remember Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne), my technology blogging guru at Free Tech for Teachers? Tonight he started following me on Twitter. The tech-nerd in me feels like I just made friends with a big celebrity. That notification in my inbox (and seeing "follows you" on his profile) was kind of like an "I made it" moment for me in ed tech.

And that's it, maybe. Today helped me dive into my new professional learning network/community. Much needed, since I'm the only person in my position at CJ. Thrilled to have this community and ready to get more active in it.