My Google is Broken...

s   Hutchdocs (Google Apps for Education) was a new addition to our district this year.  Initially it was meant to roll out for grades 7 - 12.  Teachers and students were quick to recognize the possibilities of Hutchdocs when they saw that they could use any computer or iPad to connect, they could get on their accounts from home effortlessly, they could share lessons and projects with each other which made collaboration simple, and that everything saved automatically so students’ work was never lost!   As things usually happen when technology is concerned, word spread about the ease of use with Hutchdocs and the increase in efficiency, collaboration and engagement in the classroom.  At that time grades 4 - 6 were added.  Finally, some very interested, tech-savvy  third grade teachers asked if they could pilot Hutchdocs with their students, so 3rd grade was added to the list as well.   Wow!  Needless to say, I was and still am thrilled with the reception Hutchdocs has received.  Being invited into so many of your classrooms to introduce it to your students has been rewarding as well.  Teacher and students in our district have impressed me with their willingness to try something new!  Take a look at the usage and collaboration reports below and you will see the steady gain since October ‘13.  Brilliant! As with all new things there are bound to be a few glitches.  I get emails, occasionally, asking if Drive is down  or saying that  “Drive is going crazy today”, etc.  The bad news is that if things are running slowly or you send me an email telling me things are “wonky”, there is nothing I can do to help you.  I can troubleshoot if you have shared with someone and they can’t see it, have lost your password, need a new account, want new ideas for collaboration or classroom use, but I cannot tell you why an error message is coming up.  Like you, I can guess and then I have to investigate.    The good news is there is a website where you can look for some answers.  No, you are not diagnosticians, nor do we want you to attempt to fix any hardware on your computer!  These websites  will simply tell you if GOOGLE is having any sort of problems with any of their apps, offer suggestions if you are getting error messages etc.  If you have investigated and are still having problems with your COMPUTER, a call needs to be made to TSC @ 5640. Google Apps Status Google Apps Status is a no frills webpage that shows a chart of all Google Apps  and if there has been service interruption, if service is down or if there are no current issues at that time. Is It Down Right Now? The link here takes you directly to a Google drive page to show you if the site it up and running.  When the page loads, if you are curious about another website, you can enter the URL address in the upper right corner and search for it.  Very handy! Common Errors in Google Drive This website gives a list of the most common errors (ie: syncing won’t quit), and tells you how to fix them.  This has been a lifesaver for me, too many times to count. It can be extremely frustrating when you’re working with a group of students and Google  decides to “go crazy”, “not play nice”, “have issues”, or my personal favorite from a recent email: “I think my Google Drive wants to see other people.”.  I’ve been faced with the same sort of thing myself.  There is nothing worse than walking around a classroom filled with rowdy 14 year-old's whose technology doesn't work.  Oh wait, yes there is.  I think it’s standing in front of a rather large group of teachers or conference attendees ready to present,   and MY technology doesn't work.  I’ll admit it, it stinks.  However, we as teachers know that being flexible and ready for anything comes with the territory.  Hopefully the sites above will act as additional tools when minor errors occur with Hutchdocs. Also, please remember that summer professional learning is available for Hutchdocs on June 6 at the PLC.  From 8:30 - 11:30 we will start with Basic Hutchdocs.  Basic would mean creating folders, sharing, collaborating, creating contact groups, converting MS Word docs,  Presentations (like PowerPoint), Draw (like Publisher), and Forms introduction.  From 12:30 - 3:30 we will move to Hutchdocs Advanced.  This class will dig deeper into collaboration, classroom application, forms, add-ons, research and more.  Space is limited...sign up in MyLearningPlan to attend.

App Smashing: Tellegami and iMovie

App Smashing:  The process of using multiple apps in conjunction with one another to complete a final task or project.

I have been excited to see enthusiasm for ipads explode across the district this year!  Teachers K - 12 are using them for instruction and projects and have been asking for new and different ways to incorporated them into their classrooms.  You asked for it?  You got it!

Anyone who has used an ipad with students for a given amount of time has quickly figured out that using one app to create something or complete a task doesn’t quite get the job done.  That’s where “App Smashing” comes in.   By using multiple apps, users can create an experience that is much more engaging and a project that filled with higher order thinking skills. 

Today's apps:  Tellagami and  iMovie ( Safari and Camera Roll )
Most of us are familiar with iMovie, so I won’t spend time here going through the particulars.  Tellagami, however, may be new to some of you.  It’s an app where students can create their own avatars, complete with hair, eyes and clothing choices.  In addition, they choose backgrounds that their avatars stand in front of(pictures from the internet or that they create themselves), which is key for this project.  Once those items are chosen, students can record themselves reading 30 second voice-overs or choose from a list of voices available and type in information they have gathered for whatever project or task they are completing.  After previewing and saving (Gamis are saved to the iPad camera roll) , students have a product called a Gami.  If you plan on using Tellagami as a stand alone, some quick ideas you might try: 

• Have your character tell a story.
• Pick a person in history and have them introduce themselves
• Use a plant cell as the background and have the avatar name and discuss the function of each part of the cell.
• Recite a famous poem or speech
• Read a poem they wrote
• Take a trip or go back in time and describe where the location/time period
• Speak in Spanish, French, Mandarin or any language (http://www.freetech4teachers.com)

Tellagami + iMovie = Wow
 Import multiple Gamis into iMovie and you have a larger project.   As you can see from the Youtube link at the beginning of this post, I created multiple Gamis on different subjects, inserted them all into iMovie and uploaded the whole thing.   Students can add video introductions (think common core speaking and listening skills) add music, text and a conclusion as well.  Groups could put together vocabulary reviews, make one big presentation over a particular topic - collaboration is an easy fit here.  

How does this apply to you?   These apps can be used for students K - 12.  Here are a few ideas to get you started:
ELA:

• Record vocabulary definitions. Create a separate Gami for each definition.  Put them together in an iMovie to use as a study tool.  
• Compare and contrast stories in the same genre (e.g., mysteries and adventure stories) on their approaches to similar themes and topics.
• Book Reports:  Your Gami acts as the narrator for your report on theme, plot, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution.
• Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact).
• Explain simple, compound and complex sentences.  

Social Studies:

• Students could create Tellagami videos explaining important events, inventions, and accomplishments in historical figures’ lives.
• Explain how a bill becomes law.
• Explain how interest rates are raised or lowered.  

Geography:

• One clip could describe the landforms of point A.  The next could do the same for point B.  Students could write directions from point A to point B with a map in the background.  

Science:

• Students could act as news reporters at a volcano (picture of volcano as their background) in their first clip.  In the second clip, they could interview a classmate about what they saw…(think formative assessment……) etc.
• Students could  explain a multi-step procedure or experiment.
• Explain the outcome of a lab and the steps they took to get that outcome.

Math:

• Student could explain what PEMDAS is in the first clip.  In the second clip, student could walk us through a specific problem using PEMDAS.  It could also be used to show the thought process behind how students solved any math problem. 
• Explain why addition and subtraction strategies work, using place value and the properties of operations.
• Describe the effect of dilations, translations, rotations, and reflections on two-dimensional figures using coordinates.
• Identify arithmetic patterns (including patterns in the addition table or multiplication table), and explain them using properties of operations. 

There are so many possibilities when using Tellagami and iMovie together!  What are some ideas you have for your classroom?

This post is about a skill that is valuable for everyone to know:  COMMAND F (NOTE: the keyboard shortcut is “CTRL F” for PC users, but I’ll refer to COMMAND F, since that’s the Mac keyboard shortcut and I have to pick one.)
You perform this shortcut by:Mac Users: Holding down the COMMAND key on your keyboard and then  pressing the F key.  A pop-up window will appear in the upper right hand corner.  You type in your keyword there.  Details are below.  PC Users: Holding down the CTRL key on your keyboard and pressing the F key.  A pop-up window will appear in the upper right hand corner.  You type in your keyword there.         Never heard of it?  Don’t fret, you’d be surprised at how many people don’t know what it does!  COMMAND F is the keyboard shortcut for FIND. In this age of overwhelming data, we not only need skills to find the correct information in a search engine, but we also need to find information on a page.    This little gem has a plethora of applications for the classroom, too.  Here are a few:Researching   Some students begin researching by entering a keyword like “Honey Badger” into a Google search engine.  They find a website and either print an inexplicably large number of pages that they begin to wade through or stare aimlessly at the computer trying to find what they are looking for.  This is long, tedious, boring and often times finds students collecting  irrelevant information.  If instead, students have three keywords they begin with like “honey badger, species, habitat” they will have many more hits that are relevant to their topic.  Once they click on a website, by using the COMMAND F shortcut and typing in “habitat”, they will be taken directly to that spot in the cite.COMMAND F (CTRL F on PCs) is the perfect tool to use when you are reading for specific content online.  Say someone sends you a PDF about Assessments that is 108 pages long.  They want you to read it and generate an outline about Formative Assessments for a meeting TOMORROW. There’s no table of contents and of course, it’s 4:30.   Gulp.  You don’t have to read the entire document or make yourself nauseous by skimming page after page trying to find the info you need.  Using COMMAND F will take you to the first instance the words appear and as long as your cursor is inside the FIND box, you can hit the return key to take you to the next instance the word appears in the text.  (In the graphic here, you see what CTRL F looks like in Google Docs.  It highlights the words in green and gives me the total number of times the word command is used in my document.)    As you click through, it will take you to all the other places in the text where those words appear.  

Editing Essays
Teaching students to edit their papers can sometimes be quite a feat.  In a world where they’re told that every stick figure they draw should be in the Louvre, it’s sometimes hard to explain to them that there is such a thing as a rough draft and that their masterpiece isn’t finished after the first go around.  Teaching students the COMMAND F trick could make things a bit easier on everyone.  Here’s how that works - upon completing their rough drafts students should search:

• AAAWWWUBBIS...if you’re an English teacher, you know what that means.  Any word that could possibly begin a dependent clause can be searched separately, allowing students to check to see that there are no fragments in their papers.

• Dead Words:  If your class has a dead word list, ask students to search for them and remove them from their papers.

• Commas(Punctuation of any kind): Commas errors always seem to top the list.  Ask students to search for commas to decide if they have been used correctly. 

• Search for then and make sure that it refers to time passing. If it’s a comparison, it should be than.

• Some words often feel vague to readers; search for each of them and consider replacing them with more concrete words. These include good, great, interesting, wonderful, and truly.

• Search for its and it’s and make sure you’re using them correctly. (Not sure which is which? Google it.)

• Search for the word that and make sure that it’s not renaming a person; if it is, you can usually safely change it to who. 

• You – type in the search box the word you. If any come up and are not in a quote, figure out how to get rid of it. You might want to change it to people or one and make sure the rest of the sentence still makes sense.

• There, their – Search there. Every time you see it check to see if it is possessing the word after it. If it is, then you need to change it to their. Example: They drove their car to the store. Their tells me whose car it is. Then search their, and make sure that every their is possessing the word after it. Remember there has here in it, and their has heir in it. An heir is someone who will inherit or come to possess property of someone who dies.

• Think about words your students misspell often.  Make your own list of the top mistakes and ask students to run them through Control-F as the final step before submitting the final draft.

So, as you're planning your lessons and kids are researching online or editing their papers, COMMAND F (for Macs) or CTRL F (for PCs) can be a great skill to teach them.  

Digital Learning Day Brings Info and Resources Galore

Digital Learning Day is Wednesday, February 5, 2014.  If you're asking yourself "what's that?" you've come to the right place.  Spearheaded by the Alliance for Excellent Education, Digital Learning Day recognizes innovative teaching and common-sense, effective applications of education technology that support teachers, improve learning, and help students achieve at their highest potential.

    In addition, thousands of state and local events will be held throughout the country, including the more than 1,000 local events that educators have added to the Digital Learning Day website. In conducting their events, educators will be tapping the interactive lesson plans andteaching toolkits available in several different subject areas, including English language arts, math, science, social studies, and more.
    “In the two years since the Alliance’s inaugural Digital Learning Day, the many uses of technology to improve student learning outcomes in the nation’s schools have skyrocketed,” said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education. “Still, there are schools and classrooms where students are asked to check their devices at the door. Digital Learning Day was created to provide all educators—from those who are technology averse to the technology rock stars—with the support and guidance they need to feel comfortable using different types of technology to improve learning in their classrooms.”
   In addition to the local events, Digital Learning Day will include a national showcase event and virtual conference that will be broadcast live on the internet from the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. The showcase will be hosted by Judy Woodruff, co-anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour, and it will feature Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler, U.S. Representative George Miller, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, Acting U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education James H. Shelton III, Wyoming State Senator Rich Crandall, and Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Lillian Lowery.
    The national showcase will also feature educators and students from schools and school districts that are using technology to make a positive difference in student learning, including Talladega, Alabama; Beaverton, Oregon; Henry County, Georgia; Hillsborough, Florida; Albemarle County, Virginia; and West Windsor Township, New Jersey. Also highlighted will be key initiatives to bring broader adoption of technology into classrooms, including an urgent need to update the federal E-rate program, an immensely successful initiative that has connected 94 percent of schools to the internet, but as more teachers, students, and devices attempt to access a school’s network, it cannot meet the exploding demand for high-speed connections.
    “From simple beginnings, Digital Learning Day has become a worldwide event for showcasing how technology can improve student outcomes and support teachers,” said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. “I encourage everyone—educators, parents, students, and members of the media—to visitDigitalLearningDay.org or contact your local schools and school districts to see what they are doing to celebrate Digital Learning Day and learn how you can get involved.”
    Visit DigitalLearningDay.org for ideas about how students, parents, administrators and others can participate. Follow the action on the Digital Learning Day Twitter page, with the #DLDay hashtag, and on the Digital Learning Day Facebook page.
    In USD 308, we know that every day is a digital learning day, but the resources and celebration surrounding this event are truly too good to pass up.  What are you doing on Wednesday to recognize Digital Learning Day?  

'Twas the Day Before Break (A Technology Tale)

‘Twas the days before Break, and all through the schools The  teachers were using technology tools. The iPads were charged and the “carts” were plugged in In anticipation for class to begin. The students showed up with a gleam in their eyes, Because when there’s tech, engagement arrives. They take to it like a duck does to water, ‘Cuz the tech is the clay and the kid is the potter. At Faris and Graber and Lincoln and Wiley, Cool projects like “Linkville” make wee ones feel smiley. Others like Manny write blogs yes they do, And Bleything and Williams tried Hutchdocs woo hoo! Corcoran’s vid made the board say “That’s Great!” Burlie’s sixth grade  iMovie  was especially first rate. Winters does projects with Educreations, They make herstudents give standing ovations! Don’t forget Magnet @ Allen  or our  MCC, They are as  busy with tech as they can be. With Compass and iPads and SMARTboards  galore, They are always on the lookout for more, more and more! Then Morgan and the folks down at Avenue A, Bring technology into most every day. With Keynote, Edmodo, QR Codes and FasttMath, Their students are headed down the perfect path. Don’t count out the high school or CTEA, Their tech is “sick” as the kids these days say. They’ve got Robots and green screens and auto-mechanics, Robotic welders, wind tunnels-  I’m not done yet, don’t panic… There’s the Hoss Mill and paint booth that’s state of the art, The saw stop and printer that prints 3D parts. The teachers are stellar as they teach the mobs Of kids hoping they’ll become the next Steve Jobs. Loewen and Gusty and yes, even Durham Tackled Hutchdocs without a bad word between ‘em. The students enjoy it , Roehm knew that they would, They turn things in paperlessly the way that they should. Hutch Middle School, it was not saved for last, Their use of technology can’t be surpassed. They “Explain Everything”, Socravite and such Infographics, Thinglink gosh, there’s so much. So as this last day with students draws near, There’s just one thing more that I’d like you to hear. Thank you so much for your hard work with tech, Have a restful holiday season, as the halls you do deck! Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!!!!! Amy Reilly

Linkville: A "Tasty" Second Grade Community

2nd Graders at Wiley Elementary got a taste of what building a community is like in Kristi Link's class. Focusing on Social Studies Common Core Standards that center around communities and what makes them thrive, students spent time brainstorming what was important for all communities to have, what citizens needed, and how buildings might be designed. Then, using a variety of items, the kids set to work building their community (they named it Linkville).  Kristi's class is part of a larger, multi-state project called a "STEM to STEAM" challenge. During the week of December 16-20 classes will Skype with each other to compare/contrast their engineered communities and discuss what it is like to live where they do.  To read more about this activity, you can visit the project website here.

Yes, We Can...Write Code. :-)

It's here!  Computer Science Education Week is upon us and as I posted in last week's blog a great way to recognize it is by visiting their site and treating your students to "An Hour of Code".  I am a firm believer in practice what you preach where technology is concerned so I signed up and participated myself.  It was FUN!  It was also a tad addicting. The minute I saw the Angry Bird logo I knew that kids would be interested but I was still sketchy about adults.  That skepticism quickly vanished when I entered the site:  http://learn.code.org/hoc/1   It was engaging and educational at the same time.  Basically users are trying to "write code" that gets the bird to the pig.  This video explains how:  

What a great way to get students excited about writing code!  There are extension activities as well for those students and teachers who are interested in going beyond the hour where they learn the basic concepts of Computer Science with drag and drop programming. The website provides 15-25 hours of "unplugged" classroom activities interspersed with game-like, self-directed tutorials starring video lectures by Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies.  
I strongly encourage you to introduce your students to the concept of coding in this way.  You won't be sorry!