Push a website out to your students with Share to Classroom extension!

"Share to Classroom" is such a great extension for any teacher who is using Google Classroom with their students.

One extra feature that this extension can do that I wanted to share requires that students are in class - logged into their chrome on a desktop or on a chromebook AND the students have this same extension installed.

The PUSH option in the "Share to Classroom" extension allows the teacher to instantly push a website to the students on their computer or chromebook.  It instantly opens a new tab and the website appears in front of the students.  This is an easy way to get students to a site without having to post a link, or worse, have the students type the address in the browser.

It took less than 5 minutes to walk a classroom of 3rd graders through adding this extension to all the chromebooks.  If your chromebooks are set up through a management system the extension can be added that way as well.  Once the extension is added it will stay with that student's log in on both the chromebook and in the chrome browser when on a desktop computer.

Must have Extension for Google Classroom!

Using Google Classroom with your students?  There is a must have extension to help streamline the process for creating assignments and announcements.  

The “Share to Classroom” extension allows for teachers instantly link a website that they are visiting to their Google Classroom wall as either an assignment or an announcement.  

You can post directly from inside the extension or ‘save as draft’ to post later or add additional resources.  

Another use is if you have a google document open that you are creating to use in an assignment, using the “Share to Classroom” you can instantly attach the document in the extension and create your assignment.  This saves you from needing to log into classroom and find the document in your drive.  

This productivity tool is essential for any teacher that is using Google Classroom!  There's another cool use for this extension coming in the next blog post!

Not sure how to add an extension? Or what is an extension? Here's a older Youtube video to help explain.

Chromebook Basics - Thinglink

Just wanted to share a quick resource that awesome edtech guru Melissa Lim from Portland Public Schools created to help explain the ins and outs of Chromebooks.   Check it out!


If you have never played with Thinglink before - check it out! It's a fun twist on making interactive images.

Student Character Word Cloud

It's the end of the year.  Students creating a collection of works as a scrapbook reminding them of their journey.

One elementary teacher had students create character trait word clouds for their covers.

The students began by brainstorming a list of positive character traits.  From this list they could choose one trait that represented each student.

To automate this process a Google form was created.  This way we could copy/paste in results from the Google form into Wordle to create a quick cover.  To get the name larger we simply typed it in enough times to create desire look.

 

Now if only there was a Google Add-On that created a "word cloud" from results provided by a form submission.

KidKam - Videos for Kids

I hear this debated topic often, do we allow students access to Youtube?  Some say sure, as it's a great opportunity to discuss many digital citizenship topics while the other side of the coin prefers to regulate what is available for students to view.

KidKam is a free online website that allows students to search through videos without the worry of accidentally coming across the inappropriate.  The videos will be tailored to elementary aged students from Pre-k through 6th grade.

The first step is for the teacher or parent to create an account. Once logged in videos can be searched for under a variety of categories, or tagged by specific age groups.

While searching you won't run across any comments by Youtube viewers.  Just instructionally appropriate comments by peer teachers recommending the video.

As a teacher you can create playlists of similar videos for students to quickly retrieve and watch.

As a parent or teacher you can go into parental controls and tighten restrictions to the website, like only allow the website to be viewed for a specific amount of time during the day or only allow videos in a particular grade level.

Basically, this is Youtube for kids, Youtube for the Elementary Classrooms.

Classroom Updates - it just keeps coming!

A few new features rolled out in Google Classroom to make this tool even more teacher friendly!   As this tool has developed over this year, the features added continue to make Google a key tool in today's classroom.

Save an assignment for later posting...  Not much explaining on this as to how this will save teacher time! Add your links, documents, instructions and choose to save as draft.  This allows you to post it when needed.    

Multiple Teachers.... These still have to be from teachers in the same Google domain but it allows for team teachers and student teachers to all post and take care of assignments, all the same tasks as the teacher who created the class except delete the class.   Perfect opportunity to set up book studies or projects with buddy classrooms in your district! 

  

Umatilla Feb 13, 2015

Agenda

Objective:  Participants will discuss about different foundation elements found necessary to be successful with next generation assessments, and explore resources that may assist them in preparing students with next generation assessments.

DOK

• Padlet Wall Exploration
• DOK on game show / reality tv
• DOK on test questions

Grit/Growth Mindset

• Angela Duckworth - “The Key to Success? Grit”
• Reflection Activity

Resource Exploration

• Edcite - Create or use assessments modeling SBAC style questions and interface
• Better Lessons - Lesson plans sorted by CCSS that have been taught in classrooms  by master teachers
• Teaching Channel - Videos supporting growth for teachers including tips, lessons, professional development, and more

Key Learning / Muddiest Point

Effective Strategies for Next Generation Assessments

Agenda

 

Getting Started

• Table Group Introductions
• Four Things About My Journey
  

Today's Objective 

 Each participant will experience Smarter Balance Testing environment to better understand what students will need in order to be successful, then create lessons/resources to be used with their classroom as soon as tomorrow.  

Perseverance

• The key to success? Grit
• Perseverance Padlet
• How gritty are you? 

"The average child asks 100 questions a day.  By the time the is 11 or 12 he or she has figured out that it's much more important to get right answers than to keep asking thoughtful questions" - Tony Wagner from the book Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World

DOK

• DOK Padlet 
• DOK Quick Check   
• What level of DOK is this question?

Smarter Balance Assessment Environment

• OAKS Portal for Students  - Training vs CA vs PT
• What skills did you need to be successful with the assessments?
• Tests? What's What

After Lunch Exploration ... more coming later

Task:

Part 1:
 Explore resources below or others that are shared in your table groups
and find 3 or 4 resources/lessons/performance tasks/assessments that
you can implement with students.

Part 2:  Fill in your plan while looking through the resources.

Resource Links:

* Teaching Channel

* SBAC Digital Library

Additional Resources:

* Edcite

* Google Classroom

* BetterLesson

* Folder of Shared Resources

Link to IMESD Resource Page

Final Reflections and Take Aways

PDU and Evaluation