North Idaho EdTech

One of my favorite things about Google Forms is that the amount of class-work related things that it can automate for me. I’ve used them for quizzes, beginning of the year surveys, to collect web addresses, and much more. One of my favorite things to do with them is to collect student ideas and work. As a teacher of Advanced Placement Language and Composition students, I was collecting a large amount of written work daily. I wanted students to be able to share this written work amongst their classmates in an organized fashion, without doing the old-fashioned “Pass your notebook to your neighbor” process (not that it’s bad practice, but it never really allowed for full class discussion and it meant uncontrolledly sharing their private thoughts with the person who is next to them – some would even refuse). Then I discovered a way that the class could collaborate in small groups and present their ideas to everyone, controlling what they share and doing it all in a very safe environm...

In looking for a solution for teachers who need to have students grab a document and make a copy in Google drive from an iPad (which is not possible in the mobile version or the Drive app), I stumbled upon two great solutions for "passing out" templates to students. Both solutions require that there be a document template that you wish to "pass out" to students already created.  The first solution I found is a Google Script written by Arun Nagarajan. Using this script, a teacher can now give students a link or QR code that they navigate to and click "Open Document" which makes a copy of the original document directly into the students' Google Drive account.  To use this, follow the simple steps below. If you are using a Google account within the Cdaschools domain, you won't have to do anything special. If you are outside our domain, you'll want to set up your own version of the Google Script following  these directions given by the author...

Purpose is always something that, as teachers, we are asked to provide for students regarding everything that we do in the classroom. Why do they have to read that book? What are the uses of that skill outside of the classroom? When will we use that formula? Why are you assessing students in that manner? And so on... The same question applies to technology use in the classroom. We must always start our thinking with the purpose questions: Why are we using that tool? What purpose does it serve for students? What does technology allow students to do that they cannot do without it? Once we have found the answers to these questions, we are then able to take the technology and use it more effectively than ever before. One model that many teachers and educational technologists have started to use is referred to as the SAMR model. This was developed by Dr. Ruben R. Puentedura, founder of Hippasus, a consulting firm whose goal is to "help transform education by combining a broad range...

As I was catching up on my Twitter feed yesterday, the tweet out of  this posting  by Alice Keeler caught my eye. At first, I thought, what would that do for me? How could that help? But then, I read closer and found out how nice this could be.  One thing that many teachers have told me is that getting students to fill out certain parts of a form correctly is always very difficult. With this simple tool, we can pre-fill certain lines in our form. Take a few moments to check out Alice's blog (and explore as there is a lot of good information) and try out this easy to follow tutorial to ease the use of Google Forms.