Google Classroom - Yes it's up and going!

Google Classroom rolled out a few weeks ago, creating a mad rush to check it out before students walked through the doors.  All schools in our region have it under their Google Apps for Education domain.  

A few things to remember as you explore and or look to roll it out with students.  The teacher and student must BOTH use their school google domain.  If you are unsure of what your school google is or would like to set up a time to have one of us go over it with you, please contact us!  We are available to help. 

For our schools in the region rolling out chromebooks, this is an invaluable tool.  It takes the time of setting up numerous shared folder systems with all the students and makes it a one stop place!  The best part?  Automatic folder creation and organizing.  Even better?  Automatic file naming! 

Not sure how you might use this is your classroom?  Check out this blog post from Alice Keeler on Teacher Tech "20 Things You Can Do With Google Classroom". 

ViewPure - a Clean YouTube Experience

The title of this post describes this site perfectly.  Yes, watch YouTube videos without the ads, comments, and suggested videos.  Great for the classroom.

Prevent accidental inappropriate suggested videos suddenly appearing when showing YouTube videos with your class.

If you create hyperlinks to YouTube videos inside a lesson, link to ViewPure instead.

If you want to search for a video in front of your class to demonstrate an on the fly quick point, searching ViewPure with Strict Safe Search provides much more comfort and appropriate results.

Try ViewPure, as this is a great tool for your classroom.

EDpuzzle : An Interactive Video Resource

A lesson containing a video I've facilitated many of times typically went like this:  teacher will project the video in front of the class as the entire class watches the video, with those in back squinting because they forgot their glasses, in a darkened room because the lumens on a projector aren't strong enough to provide a bright enough video thus students start nodding.  Wake up I say. 

What about assigning videos that are interactive, where students watch them at their own pace with periodic engaging questions and activities throughout the video? 

EDpuzzle is one of several online free tools that allow teachers to create these video environments for their students.

Teachers can choose to import videos from a wide range of websites hosting videos, or even upload your own video if you show choose.

 

Whichever video you select, you are do not need to force the students to watch the entire video, but just the portion that is meaningful for your lesson using the crop tool.

You may insert your own audio intro and/or concluding remarks at the end of the video.  Maybe you would like to record over a video using your own voice.  This creates a more personalized feel of the video for your students.



You may insert questions, either multiple choice or free response, at any point within the video.  These questions can be self grading, or graded at the end by the teacher.

Teachers set up a class, then students create an account and join the class.  The teacher assigns video tasks to the class, and students in that class complete those tasks.  All work is saved so the teacher can monitor student understanding and progress through the material.

For a higher engaging type of assignment teachers can have students find a video themselves and use the appropriate tools, crop, add audio, or embed questions to demonstrate their understanding of a topic and submit this finished video back to the teacher.  The teacher can then save this video into their My Video section, and share it back out with the rest of the class.

EDpuzzle is a great tool if you are looking to flip your classroom, or just to provide more engaging personalization of videos for students in your regular classroom.  Teachers can embed their video lessons onto other platforms, including Edmodo, Schoology, Moodle, and more.

Another interactive video resource to check out would be eduCanon.

Virtually Attending a Tech Conference Using Twitter

Twitter is a great resource to obtain information shared by millions of others from all over the world.  Conferences are great events to visit as you network with peers in your profession.  However, they can be costly for many of us.  I say check out conferences via Twitter.

Most conferences have a Twitter hashtag.  The conversations shared and resources provided are endless.  You can take part in these conversations whether you are at the conference or not; or simply kick back and peruse through the posts as they scroll by.

What if you aren't a Twitter user?  No problem, you can still read through all the posts by accessing Twitter search at https://twitter.com/search-home and searching for the hashtag of interest.

A great instructional strategies conference I’ve attended for several years is IntegratED in Portland, OR, usually held in late February.  The hashtag they use is #ipdx14.

If you were to search through #ipdx14 feeds you would find the following:

• A post referencing an online article
  Love this graphic! Where the magic happens | Ignited Leadership #ipdx14 http://ow.ly/u4V3T

• A post referencing a Twitter Pic
  My favorite tidbit from following #ipdx14 feed: http://www.d11.org/LRS/PersonalizedLearning/Documents/KnosterMANAGINGCOMPLEXCHANGE.pdf … @Queener1 @mikedronen @fellbop @pechacekk pic.twitter.com/ttKzNchxUZ

• A post referencing the IntegratED environment
  I love that everyone has same name badge (no difference for presenters) Sends message we are ALL here to learn and share #iPDX14

• A post referencing the shared public notes document from IntegratED 
  Taking notes in the official #ipdx14 Google Doc. Favorite this, & come back later for some good #edtechchat! http://bit.ly/ipdx2014

• A post referencing a Youtube video 
  Gearing up for the Mobile Learning Safari at #iPDX14 with http://24hoursofhappy.com  Clap along if you feel like that's what you want to do. ;-)http://t.co/vzNuazarFZ

• A post referencing a presenters slide deck and presentation resources 
  My Mobile Learning Safari slide deck is online here http://www.slideshare.net/dkuropatwa/mobile-learning-safari-slide-deck-v2 … Workshop stuff is here http://dkworkshops.wikispaces.com/IntegratEd+2014%3B+Portland+OR … #iPDX14

• A post referencing social experiences at IntegratED
  The Charlie's Angels of #edtech: Melissa, Corin & Rachel #ipdx14 pic.twitter.com/hqk7ur88Uf

Find a conference and follow the hashtag in Twitter, or go back and review the feed afterwards.  There are great opportuntities to learn new ideas towards improving your craft. At a fraction of the cost to physically attend.

 
Other hashtags of conferences

• #ncce14 - Northwest Council for Computer Education http://www.ncce.org/
• #ascd14 - Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development www.ascd.org
• #tcea14 - Tots and Technology http://www.tcea.org/
• #fetc14 - Florida Educational Technology Corporation http://www.fetc.org/
• #iste14 - International Society for Technology in Education https://www.iste.org/
• #isf13 - IntegratED San Francisco http://integrated.oetc.org/
• are there others, please submit as a comment?

Snagit - Screenshots and Screencasting on Chrome

TechSmith Snagit for Google Chrome is a handy free extension and app that allows nice integration between taking screenshots or screencasting and your Google Drive account.  This is great for those that utilize the Chrome browser or have Chromebooks.

For screenshots, the extension allows you to choose the section of the screen you would like a image of. Once the image is taken there is then the option of using a variety of annotation tools and a variety of color options.  The image then saves into the Snagit App library as well as into a folder labeled "TechSmith" in the Google Drive account.

The screencasting tool is in the Snagit App.  By pressing the + symbol, a new recording will begin, giving you the option of recording the screen or a specific tab.  Adjustments to audio can be made in the settings of the app.  When finished, the recording can be uploaded to youtube and saved into the Google Drive account in the TechSmith folder.  

To make Snagit work, you must install both the extension and the app from the Google Chrome Store. There are a few settings in your chrome browser that may need to be adjusted, which TechSmith does a great job explaining in the two video chops below.  Original Hang Out from TechSmith announcing the new screen recording feature can be found HERE (15 minutes total viewing time). 

Granted, if I am using my Windows 7 computer, I do have access to the snipping tool in the accessories folder for quick screenshots.  The benefits of using the snagit extension over the snipping tool are the extra annotation tools to mark on the image with and the fact that it is automatically saved into a folder in my Google Drive. I use my Google Drive for a lot and this makes pulling in images easy.