Starting Places - Resources for Using Technology in the Classroom

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I went to a fabulous conference this week on best apps and using mobile devices to strengthen student learning.  And while the conference was geared towards K-6, there were a number of resources that could be applicable at the secondary level as well.  By the end of the day I was on information overload and feeling overwhelmed (in a good way!) about all of the possibilities out there.  However, one of my favorite things I took away was simply the list of quality resources available for using technology in the classroom.  So I am sharing a couple of those resources with you today.  Some of the resources are geared towards specific devices or platforms such as iPads or Google, and others are more general resources, but they are all great starting places for ideas and tips on using technology in the classroom.  Thank you to the conference speaker Joann Troutner for the great learning and resources!

Learning in Hand - This was one of my favorites because of the great section on Project Based Learning (PBL). There is also info on this site that you can explore based on the type of device you have in the classroom.

Bloomin' Apps - I have loved Kathy Schrock and her website for years, especially when I was teaching in the classroom, and she has now expanded to include apps and tech tools organized based on Blooms Taxonomy.

Google Resources - Shake Up Learning - This site is focued on Chromebooks and resources for using Chromebooks.  It also provides a variety of Help Sheets for Google tools and information on a variety of Chrome extensions.

Ed Tech Teacher's Apps - The best option for this site is that instead of just looking up random tools or resources based on device, the resources are sorted based on classroom activity as well.  So this site is an easy resource for searching in a more meaningful way.

Apps for Children with Special Needs - This is a great site for finding reviews of apps that can work well for students with a variety of special needs.

iPad Academy - This is a great blog with tutorials, ideas for how to use apps and resources, and current information on new apps.  If you find you don't have time to sift through the variety of apps and thousands of options, use this site to help narrow down the list.

Educational Technology Guy - This is another great blog with lot of materials focused more on Google tools and Android devices.  Like Learning in Hand, there is a great section with PBL ideas and resources.

Overall, this conference was well worth the time and I came away with a lot of great resources to start with.  I have shared just a few of the ones I liked the most, so check them out and see what kind of new ideas you can find!

Organizing Your Cloud

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As much as I love storing everything in the cloud, over the years I have developed a number of accounts through various services, and at times I have trouble remembering what is stored where.  Also, moving items from one storage service to another involves a lot of downloading and uploading of various files.  Multcloud is an online tool that allows you to manage multiple cloud drives all in one space.  This can serve a few different functions.  Not only does it make it easier to keep track of where all your files are because you can easily search multiple accounts in the same location, but you can easily transfer files from one cloud storage to another.  So I can take a file from my Dropbox account and easily move it into my Google Drive account, without all the hassle of downloading and uploading the file.

So far I have found the tool convenient and easy to use. This can also be incredibly helpful for your students who may use multiple online accounts, depending on the assignment and program.  There are a number of different types of accounts you can connect to create your dashboard for managing them all in one place. Additionally, you can add multiple accounts of the same type, so for instance if you have a personal and a work Dropbox account, you can manage them together. Overall, this is one of those tools that can be convenient and make life easier for those of us who utilize multiple cloud accounts, or can't remember where we stored our stuff.

Check out the video below for  quick tutorial on getting started.

Keeping it Organized with Google Keep

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Well, it has been a few weeks.  Things got kind of crazy before Thanksgiving, so hopefully we can pick it up again in December and finish the year strong. I'm going to keep it simple this week and talk about a tool I learned about a couple of weeks ago from a colleague of mine at South that I absolutely love! While it has been around for quite a while, this is a new tool for me and has proved incredibly useful in just a few short weeks.

I am a list-maker.  I make lists for everything: groceries, things I have to do at work and home, Christmas cards to send, tech tool ideas for this blog, etc. Just about anything in my life that can have a list, does.  I have tried a number of tools to organize and track my lists.  I have used tools from the computer, online tools, and ones I can sync to my phone.  While most of them had benefits and I liked them, this new one is by far the best I have found and definitely a keeper.

Google Keep is not just a post-it note type list organizer.  It goes beyond just making my own lists.  One of my favorite features so far is the sharing feature.  I have lists that I have share with co-workers for things we need to get done, and lists I share with my husband so he knows what to get at the grocery store on his way home.  Just like with my Google documents, I can share separate lists and notes with different people.  This has been incredibly helpful and has helped streamline my organization.

Some other features I really enjoy include color-coding my lists.  For example, right now, my work lists are orange, my home lists are blue, my purchasing lists are green, and my Christmas lists are red.  This helps with visual organization.  I can also drag and drop my lists on my Google Keep page to organize them in any order I want, so I can keep work and home lists separate.  For individual lists, I can set reminders for myself if there is something urgent I need to get done, add a picture to my list (this has been really helpful for my Christmas buying list), archive lists I don't want immediately visible but still want to access, and other features like labeling, including checkboxes on my lists if I want, and deleting items I have checked off the list.  For a quick and easy tool, it really has a lot of features and options.

Overall, this is a simple tool and for many of us, a necessary one.  What I like most about it is the easy use while it includes a variety of features.  Most of all, I like the sharing options.  Check out Google Keep and add it to your Chrome on your PC from the Chrome Store, or add it to your phone, or both!  This is a great tool to help keep both teachers and students organized.  So if your New Year's resolution this year is going to be getting organized (again!), get a head start and try out Google Keep.

Google Keep Site

Making Life Easier with the Chrome App Launcher

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After taking a break last week for NDEA, this week I wanted to talk about a tool that is more about making life easier and more efficient for both teachers and students.  The Chrome App Launcher is a tool that I have only recently started using, and I am amazed at how much easier it is to access the things I need to get to easily and how much faster I can be using that instead of my Chrome Apps page.

Basically, the Chrome App Launcher allows you to launch your favorite and most frequently used apps right from your desktop instead of having to first open Chrome, go to your Apps page, scroll through your pages of Apps, and find the one you want.  Even if you are accessing something on your main apps page, for most of us we are talking at least 3 steps: launch the browser, click the apps button to get to your apps page, and then clicking the app.  The App Launcher allows you to access your apps faster by essentially putting the apps page access on your desktop.

In addition to making it easier to launch your apps, it also makes it easy to organize and find them.  If you have a lot of apps (I had three pages of them when I started), you can organize them into folders, making them easier to locate.  I now have folders for my Office apps, my personal apps, my educational tools, my new things to try, etc.  My most frequently used ones I left on their own on the main page to make access easier.  And if you still have a ton of apps even after organizing them, you can use the search bar at the top of the tool to search for specific apps.

But wait, there's more!  This tool does more than just allow you to organize and quickly access your apps. The search bar also allows you to do basic searches for simple questions or do a Google search that will then open in a browser.  I found the simple question searches helpful because you can search simple math questions and avoid having to open up a calculator on the computer, or simple conversion questions, which can be helpful in a math or FACs class, but also just for personal use.

Overall, this tool has a lot of potential just for making life easier.  Teachers and students can both use it to make working and using Google more efficient and to stay more organized. To get the App Launcher on your computer, do a search on your computer for Chrome App Launcher.  You should see the app launcher icon appear and you can either right click and choose "Pin to Taskbar" or drag it to your taskbar.  Then you are ready to go!

Livebinders - Organizing Student Resources

A livebinder really is just a binder of resources that can be created by or for students.  There are many different ways it can be used in the classroom, and can be an easy way to collect and house resources for students, student work or projects, or a collection of links or sites on a topic.

On the livebinder site, teachers or students can create a new binder, and then organize information within the binder using tabs and subtabs.  Each tab or subtab can include a piece of information such as a link to a website, an uploaded file, a link to an online file, typed text, etc.  What is nice about linking sites is that the site itself actually embeds in the livebinder page, so students can read information and navigate through the site without actually having to go out to every site and have numerous tabs open at the same time.

There are a variety of uses for livebinders in the classroom.  In the library here, we use it for different research products with students, particularly when the focus is more on using the information instead of the information search, or with classes like ELL when we are just starting out.  The librarian will find a variety of resources on the different topic options, and compile them into a livebinder that students can then use as a resource (see example links below).  However, teachers could also use livebinder by having students create them, either when doing research and working on source evaluation, or as an online portfolio showcasing different work they have done, etc.  Depending on the goal, livebinder can be a useful tool in a number of ways.  Check out the links below for some examples and resources on using livebinders.

Example of an ELL Social Studies Livebinder
Link to Educators Guide to Livebinders Resource
Livebinders website

Google Drive on Your Computer

So one of the problems I have trying to convert everything over to Google is that I have a lot of documents that I have made in Word or Adobe or other applications that do not convert well when I upload them to Google or that I want to keep in the original format so that I can still work on them in Word or wherever.  So my solution has been to use the Google Drive Client available on our computers.

What the Google Drive Client does is download Google Drive onto your computer and then sync it with your online files.  What this means is that if I have a Word document, I can save it as a Word document directly into that folder.  It then syncs online so it is still backed up in the cloud.  So if anything ever happens to my computer, I can still access all of my documents and I don't lose anything.  For those of us here at Davies, think about it like your H drive, just syncing online to Google instead of to the district servers.

Another benefit of this is that I can open these documents from Google Drive on my computer, and they will open in the correct program (ex. Word), and I can work on them there, save them as normal, and the changes save online, too.  Additionally, if I am not on my work computer, I can still access all of those documents online through my Google Drive there, and download them if I need to work on them (of course, that means I have to upload them again when I am done, but the benefits of anywhere access outweigh the inconvenience since that rarely happens).

So if your H drive is full and you have been toting around a huge external hard drive or trying to back-up all of your teaching materials to a bunch of flash drives, look into utilizing Google Drive for your computer.  With 30GB of storage, it will take a while to fill it up (compare that to the 1.5GB your H drive probably has).  The videos below show you how to install the Google Drive Client from the software center (if you have a new Windows 8 computer it is already installed and you can just open the app), and how to access and use your files once you have it downloaded.  See the library if you have questions or need help!

Google Drive Client Install through Software Center

Link to Video About Old Drive to New Drive, Drive Client Setup, and Offline Use of Files