Brennan Hosts Student Led Technology Summit

On Friday, April 22nd F.J. Brennan High School held a Student Led Technology Summit for 540 elementary students.  Each of the Grade 5, 6, and seven students in attendance arrived at Brennan with their own devices ready for a day of hands-on learning.  Sixty student leaders from Brennan High School came in on their PD Day to facilitate and support these “future Cards”.  Students enjoyed 3 x 50-minute sessions where they where they focused

on variety topics such as iMovie, Computer Programming, and Google Apps for Education.  

For a TEACHER Reflection on the day, please visit Miss Brooks Has Class Blog for information on this and many other topics!

http://missbrookshasclass.blogspot.ca/2016/04/cracking-code.html

Post Created By:

Laurie Clement

Technology Enabled Learning and Teaching Contact - WECDSB

Google for Education Certified Trainer

Google for Education Certified Innovator

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Twitter - @LLClement

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Tech Showcase Notes - Doug Sadler

EVERNOTE


Embedded below are the slides I used during the PD session on Friday.  I hope you find a use for them.  The Evernote web clipper tool is fantastic and a great way to start storing your content in Evernote.  The free account should meet your needs for years.

Log into the Chrome Browser

Consider the benefits of logging into the Chrome Browser.  Sync your browser experience so you have the same setup at every location you work.  The slides are embedded below.

We look forward to our next tech event!!

Guest Post: Creating Assessments with Google Forms

This is a summary of a session that was run by Paul Gebrael on our tech PD day last week to create a Google Form for surveys, quizzes and tests.

Step 1: Log into your MyTools2Go (or Gmail) account

Step 2: Select your drive

Step 3: Create a Google form. Go to New→ More→ Google Forms

Step 4: Begin creating your Google Form! This video may help

Step 5: Once you have completed your Form, send out the live link. You can do this by creating a bit.ly  You could create a group in gmail. You could add the link to your Google Classroom or LMS Website.

Step 6: Collecting your responses. After your students have completed the test, quiz etc, their information is stored in a spreadsheet.

Step 7: Grading your assessment. Once you have collected your results, you will then run an add-on called Flubaroo. You will go to 1. Add-ons, 2. Grade assignment. This video may help:

Next, you’ll be prompted to assign weights to each question, discard questions etc.Leave it as the default, unless you have special questions.

Step 8: Mark your assessment. At this point you would have taken the quiz, test etc yourself and created the answer key. Select your answer key. I have labeled mine AnswerKey . See below.

Step 9: Marks are generated. You’ll receive a summary of your results, the average out of the possible points and how students did on each question.

Step 10: Sharing Grades. When you’re ready to share your grades, you simply go to Flubaroo, Share Grades.

You will be prompted to this screen. Here, you may add a message, include an answer key and send your emailed grades to the students who completed the quiz.

Once you are done, be sure to turn your form off, so no other entries come in after the allotted time for the assessment. In edit view, simply click the “accepting responses” button.

You will then see this dialogue box, which notifies you that the quiz is no longer accepting responses.

Extra Video Resources: 

• Use this video to help with creating questions 
• Adding Section Headers and Page Breaks 
• Use this video to help with Flubaroo 
• Use this video to help turn form On/Off
• Use this video to help with Advanced Techniques with Google Forms For example, using advanced add-ons, making password protected forms, using math expressions in questions, limiting who can take your test, having multiple correct answers, case sensitive answers etc.

Paul Gebrael

Math Teacher

Catholic Central High School

Get Your #Hashtag On

If you are new to Social Media, hashtags may not seem important or useful.  The reality is, they are an integral part of our online communication.  

What is a #hashtag you ask?   

A hashtag starts with the pound symbol (#) and is followed by a single word (or words smashed together), no spaces.

The use of hashtags began with Twitter and has expanded to other forms of Social Media.  The ability to search, organize and track a particular topic has made them beneficial in both social, educational and business settings.  WIth over 3 million users on Twitter, hashtags are an efficient way to find more information about topics you are interested in.   

When hashtags are used, they are kind of like subject lines of emails. They help you focus on the topic of the post. When we hear about things “trending” often what that refers to are the popular use of specific hashtags. For example on any given Thursday the popularity of the hashtag #tbt (throw back Thursday) tends to go up as people post there retro pictures.

 Education related hashtags are some of the most useful in the “Twittersphere”. When a tweet comes out containing an educational hashtag, that is basically saying “hey this tweet is not some inane statement about going to Starbucks, it’s about something related to teaching”. And often with these tweets there will also be a link to take you to some sort of resource. Click on any of the hashtags below to see how people are using them (no Twitter account required)

#edchat - this is the most widely used hashtag in education.  It is a great way to keep current and see what people are talking about.

#edtech – this covers a spectrum of topics focused on embedding technology into your classroom.  

#mathchat - this is used for math related educational posts. You might think it might be more efficient to just use #math but as it turns out a lot of people don’t like math and are happy to say it on Twitter.

#scichat - find out what educators are sharing about science with this hashtag

#engchat - as you probably guessed, this hashtag goes with educational posts about teaching english.

#wectec - the hashtag that will be used on Feb 14 and on for WECDSB tec discussions

#bit15 - this hashtag facilitates the integration of new computing technology into the educational curriculum

These are just a few examples of educational hashtags. In many ways, these can be more useful to follow than people. With people you get all of their conversations. With these hashtags you get a lot of resources.  The #hashtag is your friend.

Another way that hashtags are used are for what is called the “back channel” at conferences or workshops.  This sometimes comes in the form of people Tweeting out interesting things they have heard or seen.  Other times it is an actual conversation happening between those attending the conference and those following the hashtag.

Here are a few examples of “back channel” conversations:

#OAME2015 - annual Ontario math conference

#STAO2015 - annual Ontario science conference.

Social Media is an excellent place to expand your personal learning network (PLN).  Your PLN can be as large or small as you like.  Google+, Facebook, and Twitter are just a few methods that can be used to network with educators across the globe.  Hashtags can help you identify people with common interests.

We plan on using Social Networking platforms more and more at the WECDSB to help facilitate great ideas and professional connections.  Ready to get started? Click on the any of the links below to expand your online professional profile.  

The Ultimate Guide to Creating Assessments with Google Forms

The Ultimate Guide to Creating Assessments with Google Forms

Google Forms is an easy but powerful tool for teachers to create online assessments for their students. And with the help of the Flubaroo add-on, the quizzes can be graded automatically as well. There are many benefits for using online assessments with students:

• Quicker feedback - With autograding quizzes, students can get their results in a matter of minutes, rather than having to wait until the next day (at the soonest) to see if they understand the material or need more help.
• More frequent assessments - Since the quizzes can be graded electronically, teachers can easily give small assessments each day or so, giving teachers much more frequent feedback on how their students are doing, and if they need to adjust their instruction.
• Statistics - Since the assessments are digital, so are the results, which makes it much easier to do item analysis, look for patterns, and determine where the needs are.
• Collaboration - With digital assessments it is easy for teacher to collaborate with their colleagues when writing the quizzes, or to share assessments with other staff for their use.
• Special Needs - By going digital we are also able to take advantage of assistive technology. For example, with online assessments students can zoom in as needed, and use text to speech to read the questions.
• Multimedia - Online assessments don’t just have to be digital versions of the same old paper and pencil tests. Instead we can incorporate colour images and videos to provide a richer experience.
• Savings - And of course going paperless can help save on paper, ink, and budgets.

And there are probably many more benefits as well. The next question then is … 

how do you create, distribute, and grade online assessments?

See below for a large collections of resources I have created to give you everything 

you need from getting started to advanced techniques. You will find two videos, 

each an hour long, as well as several help guides and slideshows.

 Help Guide - "Using Google Forms for Online Assessments" - Google Document link

Article Written by: Eric Curts Small adaptations were made to the article for the purpose of this blog.  Click HERE to visit Eric's website and view the full article. 

Eric Curts is an Authorized Google Education Trainer and a Google Certified Innovator.  His website Control Alt Achieve features extensive resources that he has created over the years focusing on transforming education with technology.  

"Creative Commons The Ultimate Guide to Creating Assessments with Google Forms" by Eric Curts is licensed under CC BY 3.0

I Heart Desmos

I have written about Desmos before but that was two years ago. And the folks at Desmos have been busy. Specifically today I want to talk about three specific things they have given us since.

Activities by Desmos

One of the first things they started to create was a set of activities that, at times, didn't even use the graphing calculator. But all of them are really well done. I still think my favourite is Central Park. In this one students walk through the development of what a formula is. And they do it in such a low key way that starts with estimation and a simple visual interface that deals with making parking spaces. Other activities like Penny Circle (modelling functions) used the skills of Dan Meyer to interface the graphing calculator with an interesting activity. Function Carnival (distance time graphs), Tile Pile (ratios) and Waterline (modelling functions) showed the diversity of mathematics. From lower end ratio stuff all the way to related rates.
And then they came out with Polygraph. This was basically the game Guess Who. That is, you pick a graph and then your partner has to ask yes/no questions to help guess what graph you chose. The neat part is that each student does this from their own computer or device and they play against each other with Desmos randomly pairing them up. You set up the class as the teacher and give the student the four character code and end up with a record of what each student did during the activity. With Polygraph they have made several versions: Parabolas, lines, basic quadrilaterals, advanced quadrilaterals, hexagons, and rational functions.
Regardless of the activity, you create an account on teacher.desmos.com and then start the activity. You will be given a unique four character code for your students to enter when they go do student.desmos.com.

Polygraphs

Once Polygraphs came out, the online math community loved it so much that they asked for the ability to create their own. So it wasn't long before Desmos released Custom Polygraphs. They are pretty easy to make. Here is one that I made about distance time graphs.
Making them is pretty easy and basically just requires you to create each graph in Desmos. One piece of advice about making these is that you should plan out the 16 different choices ahead of time, but try not to have too much diversity or it may be too hard for students to solve the puzzle. Another neat idea is that you actually don't need to have the choices as graphs. Because you are using the Desmos calculator, you can actually just import an image in for each choice and not have a graph there at all. Like this one for primary students that has nothing at all to do with math.

Desmos Activity Builder

Once teachers started really using Desmos, they started coming up with complete activities that used Desmos as their backbone. Something like this activity jointly created by Cathy Yenca and Michael Fenton called Match my Graph. Desmos saw what they were doing and thus create the Activity builder. This now gives teachers a way to essentially create an interactive slideshow that has Desmos as the backbone. Once you have an idea, its pretty easy to put it together. Here is one that I put together on Anscombe's Quartet.
When you make these you have three choices of slides. A graph, a question or text. The question slide is very interesting as you ask a question of the students and they type in their answer and then you have the option of letting them see how other people answered. It's a neat feature to let students know how others have answered the same question.

The Desmos Community

With all of these tools now available for teachers to use and create with that means there are a large number available for us to use. You don't have to create something that someone else has already done. To that end there are currently two ways to search for these teacher made activities. Desmos has built it right into teacher.desmos.com by including a search feature on the top right. Enter a topic or teacher name and the available activities pop up. The other place is a teacher created community called the Desmos Activity Bank. Here teachers can submit their Desmos activities and anyone can use them. One of the nice things about all of these activities is when you get to them just click on Start New Session and it automatically gets added to your Desmos teacher account.

So make use of all these tools to help make the learning in your math class dynamic and Desmosified

10 creative alternatives to research reports and papers

 (Flickr / Nic McPhee)

 The following article was pulled from the Ditch the Textbook website 

by Matt Miller

I felt the 10 alternatives are worth a look and so is his website.

Doug

The merits of doing research and creating these reports and papers are valid. When they create them, students …

• Gather information
• Evaluate sources
• Organize and synthesize data
• Form ideas and cohesive thoughts
• Create a polished, finished product
• Cite where they got their information

Here’s the problem, though: the finished product just isn’t very relevant to the real world, be it in the workforce or in people’s personal lives.

Reports and papers often end up where mine always did — in the trash.

If students are going to do their best work to learn and create, shouldn’t it be in a form they can be proud of — and that they want to show others?

I think it’s time that we turn research reports and papers on their heads. Here are 10 creative alternatives:

1. Websites. By making a free website using tools like Weebly and Google Sites, students are much more likely to attract eyeballs to their work. Websites can be shared easily, and they live on when people stumble upon them through Google searches. When students publish their work to a website, they’re creating a positive digital footprint as well.

2. Piktochart infographics. Have you seen those super long infographics that you have to scroll down through to see all the information? They’re all overPinterest and other social media. Piktochart can turn a report or paper into a flashy eye-catching visual. Start with a predesigned template or use the graphics, text and other goodies to create your own from scratch. (Here’s a post I wrote with 20 ways to create classroom pizzazz in class with Piktochart.)

3. Google Drawings interactive posters. Gathering lots of information for a report or paper onto a poster board might be impossible (or require teeny tiny text!). A Google Drawings interactive poster (see post on this here) fits the in-depth research genre better because it can be a jumping off point for more information. Use a Google Drawing to present some visuals. Then, create links from that poster to Google Docs or other resources that provide more information about the topic. Be sure to use a live hyperlink (Ctrl+K is the keyboard shortcut) to get readers where they want to go.

4. Linked YouTube videos. Researchers gather information and present it in video format in front of an audience of millions every day. It’s called television news. Students can create short videos on the different segments of their report or paper. Then, they can upload them to YouTube and link them together usingannotations. It becomes an interactive video version of their reports. See this example I did with a post I wrote on Google Classroom.

5. ThingLinks. ThingLink lets students create clickable hotspots on an image. Students use an image (either use a pre-existing one, an information-based one like a map or a chart, or create one with a tool like Google Drawings orPicMonkey). Then, they add clickable dots to important parts of that image. Those clickable dots can take readers to sources already existing on the Web or to Google Docs or other sources created by students. See ThingLink’s website for examples of how this awesome tool works.

6. Radio shows. Programs like “This American Life” and other audio documentaries do a phenomenal job of creating long-form stories and journalistic presentations in an engaging way. With some planning, students could record a compelling podcast/radio show presentation about their content. They could add interviews, sound effects, background audio from a site like a restaurant or a bus station, etc. Use tools like Audioboom (upload audio so others can listen to it) and Audacity / Garage Band (for mixing audio). Can be simple or complex.

7. News broadcast. In No. 4 above, we used short video clips to create an interactive video presentation. But news broadcasts generally aren’t very interactive. Students could create a news show, blending video, images, sound and effects together using a tool like WeVideo or Camtasia Studio. It could be uploaded to a class YouTube channel where others could watch.

8. Info/image slide show. The “Did You Know?/Shift Happens” videos created by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod have been viewed millions of times on YouTube. They’ve taught us about rapid changes happening globally, and we willingly watched because they were engaging. These text-based slideshow videos can be very popular, and students can create them with YouTube’s photo slideshow tool or Animoto (free for educators).

9. Aurasma aura poster. This one actually utilizes poster board, but it’s so much more than the standard poster. With Aurasma (an iPad app), students can create auras. An aura is a video or image that displays over something in real life when you look at it through the camera in the Aurasma app. (Here’s an example of how it works.) Students can create auras for different images on their posters. When the viewer scans the images with the Aurasma app, it displays videos or images with more information.

10. Google Slides slide book. I’m all for ditching textbooks, and this is a great way to do that. Instead of using a standard textbook, students can show their understanding by creating an interactive, engaging one! In place of reports and papers, students could create a slide book like this one (created by Matt Macfarlane, a teacher who provides this to his students). Notice the images, links to sites and embedded videos.