Using the Research Tool and the PaperPile Add-On in Google Drive

Using the Research Tool in Google Slides and Docs to Find Pictures!

This tool is great for presentations! Students can add pictures to their Slides and cite them with either a link or paste the link into PaperPile for a MLA citation.

1. Open the Research Tool

2. Select Images

3. Type in your search terms

4. Drag the pictures into your Slides/Doc

5. If you are okay with just a link to the picture source, you can stop here. For a MLA citation try the PaperPile Add-On!

        

EDpuzzle + Google Classroom = Awesome! 
I usually post on Fridays, but this week I had to do a mid-week post because I am SO EXCITED that EDpuzzle is now integrated with Google Classroom.  EDpuzzle is that great tool I wrote about earlier this fall that allows teachers to create interactive videos for their classes.  Now you can post video assignments in your Google Classroom right from EDpuzzle.  This makes everyone's life easier, teachers and students alike.  Please see me in the library if you have questions on using EDpuzzle.  Here is a video describing the new integration with EDpuzzle and Google Classroom:

Mind Mapping with MindMup.com

Mind mapping is a quick, fun way to organize thoughts or take notes. Using mind maps can help visual learners "see" concepts and help all students make connections between concepts. Mind maps are thinking tools that help you process and document information or ideas. Mind maps can be used as a pre-writing activity, a quick formative assessment, an assessment of prior knowledge or an exit ticket. It is a great way help students show what they know. Tony Buzan popularized the mind map concept and he claims that students recall much more when using visuals, color and images. Thus, it is good practice to show students how to use a few features before setting them off to mind map.


I chose to show Mind Mup because it is integrated nicely with Google Drive so students can save their mind maps right to their drive and share with student collaborators and teachers easily within their mind map. See my tutorial for Mind Mup below along with another video giving ideas for mind mapping for studying and research.

Link to my mind map (in Mind Mup) of ways to use mindmaps in the classroom.

My 3 minute introduction tutorial video: 

2 minute video: Good ways for students to use mind maps for studying and research

Diigo for Education: Teacher Console

Diigo is a great tool for organizing research online without ever needing to print. When paired with the Diigo extension, you can highlight and place sticky notes on any document or webpage. Watch the videos below for step by step instructions for setting up your Diigo for Education accounts. Happy Researching!

Video #1: Getting Started with Diigo

Video #2: Installing and Using the Diigo Extension

Video #3: Setting up Diigo for Education Accounts 

(an unlisted video- only accessible through these links)

Increase student engagement in watching videos 

Edpuzzle gives teachers a great set of tools to customize videos for their classes including the ability to crop videos, create voice-overs, and (my favorite) create questions for students to answer as they watch the video. Edpuzzle allows teachers to import their own videos or use videos from sources such as Ted Talks and YouTube.  Using Edpuzzle ensures that all students respond to formative questions (open-ended or multiple choice), not just the few students that might participate in class discussion, so it increases accountability and engagement.

Teachers can see data from the formative questions and video completion for the whole class and also broken down for each student. This data can then be used to guide further instruction. Some teachers use Edpuzzle in the flipped classroom model where students watch an interactive content lesson in Edpuzzle outside of class, and then use class time to engage in activities that apply what was learned. Below is a video I created about Edpuzzle.

We in the library would love to help you get set up with Edpuzzle or give you more information!

Use Word Clouds to present words and concepts in visually interesting ways

Creating "word clouds" quickly is something you could do as a fun activity with your students to show words and concepts in a visually interesting way. Students could install the add-on and create their own word clouds or teachers could generate the word clouds and project them based on student responses in a shared Google document.   

How to do it?

In any Google Doc, go to Add-ons at the top, click “Get add-ons” - search Word Cloud Generator and install it and accept the terms.  

Then in your Google Doc, click “Add -ons” menu again and choose Word Cloud Generator. Then click “Create Word Cloud.” You can "refresh" the word cloud as you add more words to your Google doc.

SSR and Independent Reading

First, let's take a moment to celebrate the amazing reading happening at South this year. In the first quarter alone, South High led the district in eBook checkouts with 743 items checked out. In addition, our students and staff checked out 3,267 print books. Wow! That is over 4,000 total checkouts. Thank you for your work in promoting our school's library. Keep up the great work, teachers!

In order to help you continue supporting our students' reading, we have put together some videos that walk you through checking out Overdrive eBooks and navigating the library catalog (see below). Please feel free to share them with your students.

We look forward to another great quarter. Have a wonderful day!

• Overdrive
• Username and password are the same as computer logins for staff and students
• Overdrive allows you to sort by Lexile level

• OPAC Library Catalog
• Using a book students have read and enjoyed, you can use the catalog's subject headings to find another book they may enjoy.

 A great place to find tech tools

If you are looking for a new technology tool for teaching, you know we love to help you in the
library :). However, if it is midnight and you need it for tomorrow, it might make more sense to go to edshelf.com!  Edshelf calls itself a "discovery engine" of websites, apps, programs and electronic products for teaching and learning. Each tool in edshelf has a brief description, teacher reviews and a video to help you quickly understand the tool's uses.  The search feature in edshelf allows you to search through thousands of tech tools to find one that might be right for your situation, try the search feature by clicking here.   

Another great feature of edshelf is the ability to create and view "shelves" of tech tools, which are basically categories you make and organize how you want.  In the library, we are making shelves for different categories of technology tools and including our own description for each tool of how you, South High teachers, might use the tool in your classroom.  We will continue to update these shelves and they are linked to the library website.

Click on the links below to see each of the shelves we have created so far: 

Flipping the Classroom Tools

Formative Assessment Tools

Online Presentation and Product Creation Tools

Research 

Update on Restrictions and Webzones: 

This week we switched all students who are on tablet/computer restrictions due to their grades to "Tier 2" restrictions rather than Tier 3. Tier 2 is less restrictive and hopefully this will eliminate the need for Webzones in your classes as most websites you would use in your class should function normally.

What that means for students on grade-related restrictions is that they should still be blocked from YouTube and from the "games" category of websites, but that other sites should function normally. ​While we cannot block every entertainment site available online, we believe this new system will eliminate many of the distractions without taking away from instruction.

If a student is still blocked from a site in your class, first have them restart their computer (many haven't restarted and the Tier 2 won't kick-in until they do). Then if it still doesn't work, you could use a Webzone for that day and let us know the site and we will try to get it on the "safe" list to automatically bypass the filter. We are hoping that there won't be many of those sites that teachers use in class that will be blocked by Tier 2.

For students that have violated the Responsible Use Policy, they will continue to be on Tier 3. Those students are very few (there are two students in the school on Tier 3 right now), but teachers will continue to need to use Webzones or other ways to deliver Web content to those students.

Additionally, I have shared with teachers in their email the responses for a Google form that will be filled out when students are placed on restrictions (after today). We hope this document will alleviate the confusion brought on by not being aware of which students are on restrictions. Note that these form responses as of today don't have complete data since this is a new form, but will at least allow all teachers to see which of their students are on restrictions.

Follow the link below for Web Zones instructions in case you need them :)
Web Zones Instructions

It's Research Time!

It's that time of year! This post is geared toward teachers who have students research current/recent events.

NewsELA is a fabulous online resource that allows teachers to adjust the reading level of the online articles to accommodate your students' needs. Some articles can also be translated into Spanish! Watch the video below for more information.

There are also some free classroom possibilities that allow teachers to assign particular articles to students. Happy Reading!

NDATL- Take-aways

Hello again!

Wow! This fall's NDATL conference was a fantastic day of professional development.

The keynote speaker, Don Wettrick, gave some wonderful insight on how all teachers can incorporate innovation, creativity, and critical thinking into their classrooms by giving students voice and choice in their projects. This can lead to some awesome ideas and incredible student projects. Through these projects, students can find their passions and make a HUGE impact on their communities and world. Check out his website, linked above, for more information. If you'd like to read his book, pure genius, I'd be happy to lend it out :-)

The breakout sessions focused on creative approaches to class assignments and makerspaces, places of creative exploration. After this conference, I can talk to your departments about the following:

• Green screens
• Makerspaces
• "Tinkering" for learning
• Teaching students to code
• Incorporating innovative PBL into your classrooms.

I look forward to sharing more as teachers come in for collaboration. :-)

Hello from NDATL!

Hello, South High School!

I am writing today from the North Dakota Association for Technology Leaders Conference in Minot. I can't wait to bring back what I am learning to South High. On the agenda today are multiple sessions on Maker Spaces. I will share more about what I learn at the end of the day today, but until then, here is some information on Maker Spaces. Enjoy!

https://makerspace.com/

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/creating-makerspaces-in-schools-mary-beth-hertz

Screencast-O-Matic to Record Videos

Are you looking for ways to deliver content quickly to students so you can use more class time applying concepts or digging deeper into your content? 

One popular way of doing this is using the flipped classroom model where students watch a short video of their teacher giving content instruction, then use the majority of the class time to work on activities that apply what they have learned or explore content more deeply.  A great tool for teachers to record these videos is Screencast-O-Matic. It is an online video maker (or app) where you can make videos of your computer screen and/or yourself from your computer's webcam. It is easy to use and you can upload your video directly to YouTube. There is a 15 minute limit on length of each video unless you use the pro version and we do have some of those available for free to you, so ask us in the library. The pro version also has some advanced editing tools. This tool could also possibly be used for students to create videos from their PLDs, though they would have to also download and install it.

See this basic "getting started" video to check it out or, as always, stop by the library and we can help you! 

Twitter

How do you feel about Twitter in the classroom? 

Many think it is good for nothing but finding the latest Kardashian gossip (and yes, it IS great for that).  However, Twitter is also a powerful tool for classrooms.  It is another tool that teachers are using to stay in touch with students. How? Make a Twitter account with your district login and then use a hashtag for your class (like #APHugp6isthebest). Then students can follow you and teachers and students alike can post using that hashtag.  It is also a great tool to use for sending out a quick message to your class (like don’t forget the test tomorrow), but has so many other uses for the classroom. You could pose questions for your students to discuss on Twitter, have them do short writing assignments, reactions, quick formative assessments, daily logs and reflections.  It is a great tool to increase writing (our school goal, woot-woot) on a forum that many teens enjoy.

Here is a video about how teachers are using Twitter: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOlS69JUoE4:  

Communicating with Students

Greetings from the Library!

This week, we'd like to share a bit more about communicating with students outside of class. This post will be especially helpful for coaches and club advisers. Here are two possibilities:

1. Twitter: Twitter can be a great way to communicate with students using a platform most of them already use. See the post on Twitter to learn more about how to use this fun social media platform and how to create a class hashtag.
   
2. Remind (formerly Remind101) is a safe, secure method of communicating with students and parents without having to give out your phone number. Students and parents can sign up via text message or email to receive announcements from you. You can create separate group for each of your classes and teams, as well as schedule your announcements for specific times and dates. Take a look at the video below to learn more!

New features for Google for 2015-16 school year

Google has added some new features for the 2015 school year.  

   Google Classroom: See the short video that I made about it below.  Highlights: Use the + button at the bottom-right of your screen. From there, you can re-use a post from another current class or an old class. You post a question for students to respond to you and they can also respond to each other.  Also, you can go into "about" at the top and add an additional teacher to your class. 

Voice Typing in Google Docs. In Google Docs, on the Tools menu choose "Voice Typing." You must "allow" your microphone, then you can speak and Google will type. Great for students who are struggling to type for any reason.

Voice typing short video: