Seesaw: Learning Journals for Students

Seesaw is a free app for iPads and iPhones and can be viewed on the web.  Teachers can create an account online and students can take pictures of their work, talk about their work and draw on their work if desired. These journals can be used during parent/teacher conferences and parents can also be notified when students contribute something new to their journals.    To find out more about this really helpful app, click on the video below.

Here is what the website says about this app:

Teachers can setup a class and start using Seesaw in less than 60 seconds to:

EMPOWER STUDENTS:
Students (as young as 5!) can independently create, capture, and store artifacts of learning in their private learning journal.

ENGAGE PARENTS:
Parents (after teacher approval) get notified of new items, giving them a glimpse of their child’s day and an opportunity to support learning at home.

SIMPLIFY WORKFLOW:
Whether you are 1:1 or just have a single device in your class, Seesaw seamlessly organizes digital and physical work in one place.

MORE DETAILS:
--------------------

Designed for K and up to Use Independently
∙ Gives students ownership of their own space to create & record what they learn
∙ Simple QR code login, student-friendly camera, teacher approval of new items, private journals make Seesaw safe for students to use independently.

Encourage Reflection
- Students can add text and voice recordings to journal items to reflect, explain, and develop their academic voice.

Add All Types of Student Work 
∙ Use our suite of creative tools to create photos, videos, or drawings
∙ Kid-friendly camera only takes a photo when subject is in focus and camera is steady! 
∙ Add directly from many popular content creation apps (Shadow Puppet Edu, PicCollage, Storybook Creator, Explain Everything, iMovie, Skitch, and more)

Engage Parents with Student-Driven Updates 
∙ Simple and secure invitation: Send home a personalized handout that only gives access to their child’s journal
∙ Reach *all* your parents: Short, visual updates actually get seen, and cross language and technology barriers 
∙ Seesaw supports SMS, Email, iPhone and Android parent notifications
∙ Give parents information between conferences and reduce the need for lengthy newsletters
∙ Teachers are always in control: Nothing is automatically shared without your approval

Collect and Organize Digital and Physical Work in One Place
∙ View entire class feed or sort by individual student 
∙ Great for parent-teacher conferences, assessments, or student self-reflection 
∙ Access student content anywhere, anytime from iOS app or on the web

Private and Secure Cloud Storage 
∙ Student content/information is private, secure, and never shared with 3rd parties.
∙ Seesaw has taken the Student Privacy Pledge 

Teacher Resource Center 
∙ Getting started tips, professional development resources, FAQ
∙ More than 30 Common Core aligned activity ideas
∙ Personalized customer support if you need help

Speech to Text: Type with your voice in Google Drive

Google has added a new feature to their Google Docs.  When you and your students are in Google Documents, click tools in the menu area. You will see a microphone with a next to type with your voice.  Click the microphone and start talking to type!

Type with your voice

For an easy way to put words on a page, you can type with your voice in a document. At the moment, this feature is only available in Chrome browsers.

1. Before you get started, make sure that you have a working microphone either built in to your device or connected externally.
2. In a Chrome browser, open a document.
3. Click the Tools menu > Voice typing.
4. A pop-up microphone box will appear. When you are ready to speak your text, click the microphone or press Ctrl + Shift + S (Cmd + Shift + S on a Mac) on your keyboard.
5. Speak your text clearly, at a normal volume and pace. See below for more information on using punctuation.
6. When you're finished, click the microphone again.

Note: While voice typing in Google Docs is only available on computers, many Android and iOS phones and tablets have built-in microphones that you can use with a document. Look for the microphone icon on your mobile keyboard.

Correct mistakes while voice typing

If you make a mistake while you're typing with your voice, you can move you cursor to the mistake and fix it without turning the microphone off. After correcting the mistake, make sure to move the cursor back to where you want to continue voice typing. You can also right-click words underlined in grey to see a list of suggestions.

Use punctuation with voice typing

When you are speaking text in a document, there are several phrases you can use to add punctuation to your text:

• "Period"
• "Comma"
• "Exclamation point"
• "Question mark"
• "New line"
• "New paragraph"

Note: At the moment, this punctuation is only supported in German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Russian.

Troubleshoot voice typing issues

If you are experiencing any of the following issues with voice typing, try following the steps to fix the problem.

The microphone is blocked

If you are using voice typing for the first time, make sure to allow your document to access your camera and microphone.

The microphone isn't working

If you can't get the microphone to work on your computer, try the following:

• Make sure that you have a working microphone. Some laptops and desktops have built-in microphones, while others require external ones.
• Check that your microphone is plugged in and is not being used by another application.
• Move to a quiet room with limited background noise.
• Exit and reopen the tool.
• Restart your computer.

"We're having trouble hearing you"

If you see an error message that says "We're having trouble hearing you," the voice typing tool may not be able to correctly hear the text you're speaking. Try the following:

• Move to a quiet room with limited background noise.
• If available, plug in an external microphone for better results.
• Adjust the input volume on your microphone higher or lower depending on the issue.

Voice typing doesn't understand my language

If your language or accent (for example, Irish English) isn't supported by voice typing, the tool will either be unavailable or won't correctly hear the text you're speaking. You can always change your language in a document by clicking the Filemenu > Language.

Expand the section below to see if your language is supported.

Creativity For All by Michael Nobleza Become a fan Executive Director, Children's Creativity Museum

This excellent article describes the importance of creativity and design in education: Creativity For All

"Creativity should cease to be treated as a secondary or optional aspect of children's learning. The ability of youth to survive and thrive in a digital world requires that we nurture in them the ability to think creatively and to act in innovative ways to address the issues they are confronting. It is time we make the call, "Creativity for all!", a significant plank in the platform for educational equity in the United States."

New training center for Google Apps for Education

I really like the new training sites for all things Google in Education.  It looks much easier to navigate and is better organized with added features the old site didn't have.  Check it out!

Google in Education

40 Free Education Sites

Today, many people are taking a proactive hand in their own education.  From people going online to learn how to play guitar and make quilts. to those who can take classes that will lead to degrees.  Here are 40 excellent sites to use on your educational journey.

I found these sites on the website I Heart Intelligence.com.  They were submitted by Stan.

1. ALISON –  over 60 million lessons and records 1.2 million unique visitors per month
2. COURSERA – Educational website that works with universities to get their courses on the Internet, free for you to use. Learn from over 542 courses.
3. The University of Reddit – The free university of Reddit.
4. UDACITY – Advance your education and career through project-based online classes, mainly focused around computer, data science and mathematics.
5. MIT Open CourseWare – Free access to quite a few MIT courses that are on par with what you’d expect from MIT.
6. Open Culture – Compendium of free learning resources, including courses, textbooks, and videos/films.
7. No Excuse List – Huge list of websites to learn from.
8. Open YALE Courses – Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University All lectures were recorded in the Yale College classroom and are available in video, audio, and text transcript formats. Registration is not required
9. Khan Academy – Watch thousands of micro-lectures on topics ranging from history and medicine to chemistry and computer science.
10. Zooniverse – Take part in a huge variety of interesting studies of nature, science, and culture.
11. TUFTS Open CourseWare – Tufts OpenCourseWare is part of a new educational movement initiated by MIT that provides free access to course content for everyone online. Tufts’ course offerings demonstrate the University’s strength in the life sciences in addition to its multidisciplinary approach, international perspective and underlying ethic of service to its local, national and international communities.
12. How Stuff Works? – More scientific lessons and explanations than you could sort through in an entire year.
13. Harvard Medical School Open Courseware The mission of the Harvard Medical School Open Courseware Initiative is to exchange knowledge from the Harvard community of scholars to other academic institutions, prospective students, and the general public.
14. VideoLectures.NET – the title says it all – amazing video lectures on many topics.
15. TED – Motivational and educational lectures from noteworthy professionals around the world.
16. Shodor – A non-profit research and education organisation dedicated to the advancement of science and math education, specifically trough the use of modeling and simulation technologies. Included in this site are instructional resources, software, interactive lessons, explorations and information about workshops for students, teachers and learners of all ages on mathematics and science. Make sure you check Shodor Interactive – a great collection of interactive math, geometry, fractal, probability, algebra and statistics activities.
17. Udemy FREE Courses – hundreds of experts teach on Udemy every month including New York Times best-selling authors, CEOs, Ivy League professionals and celebrity instructors. Courses include video, live lectures and tools to help teachers interact with students and track their progress. There are many free courses that can teach you business online, law, programming, design, mathematics, science, photography, yoga and many more.
18. Maths & Science – Courses, tests and learning materials about mathematics and science for students from 1 to 12 grade.
19. edX.org – Free courses designed specifically for interactive study via the web, provided by MIT, Harvard, Barkley, Georgetown, Boston University, University of Washington, Karolinska Institute, Kyoto University and many more.
20. iTunes U – Apple’s free app that gives students mobile access to many courses. It offers many free video courses, books, presentations and audio lectures.
21. Liberty Classroom – Owned by bestselling author Tom Woods. Offers some free courses in history and economics, but at the price of one movie ticket a month you can gain access to a lot of useful information. Not completely free, but totally worth it…
22. Drawspace – Hundreds of free drawing lessons.
23. Codeacademy – Easy way to learn how to code. It’s interactive, fun and you can do it with your friends.
24. Duke U – Duke offers variety of free courses on iTunesU.
25. Scitable – A free science library and personal learning tool that currently concentrates on genetic, the study of evolution, variation and the rich complexity of living organisms.
26. My own business – Offers free online business administration course that would be beneficial to new managers and to anyone who is interested in starting a business.
27. Kutztown University’s free courses – The Kutztown University of Pennsylvania’s Small Business Development Center offers more than 80 free business online learning. Kutztown’s courses are individualized and self-paced. Many of the courses feature high-end graphics, interactive case studies and audio streams.
28. Open Learn – Gives you free access to Open University course materials.
29. Free Computer Books – Free computer, mathematics, technical books and lecture notes.
30. Academic Earth – Free video lectures from the world’s top scholars.31. American Sign Language Browser – Teach yourself sign language online
32. BBC Languages – Teach yourself a new spoken language online.
33. unplugthetv – Randomly selects an educational video for you to watch.
34. Lifehacker – Learn to hack life! Tips and tricks for improving all areas of your life.
35. JustinGuitar – Hundreds of free guitar lessons as well as some basic music theory.
36. DuoLingo – Learn a new language for free while helping to translate the web.
37. Layers Magazine – Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, Premiere Pro, In Design and After Effects tutorials.
38. Creative Flow – list of OVER 950 Photoshop tutorials to keep your skillset up to date.
39. Open2study – Open2Study delivers free, high-quality education online. You can study subjects with real value, and in just four weeks you can learn something new, explore the next step in your career, challenge yourself or simply satisfy your curiosity. These subjects are provided by leading Australian institutions, and are taught by academics and leading industry professionals who love to teach. All you need is an internet connection and the desire to study.
40. OEDb – Choose from over 10,000 free online classes

Self-Grading Homework and Tests

Two easy and great ways to automatically grade your students' homework, quizzes and tests are an add-on in Google called Flubaroo and a separate 2.0 tool called Socrative.

Flubaroo is an add-on in google drive that you can install to correct all your google forms automatically, get grades for students and then email students their grades.  The add-ons are in the top menu on drive.


If you click on this Flubaroo link, you will be directed to easy, detailed directions with screen shots from the author of the add-on.


Socrative has a more sophisticated look and allows you to easily create tests, quizzes and homework that students can take online. These will automatically be graded for you.

Here are some of the choices when creating assignments.  And here are detailed instructions for using this online application

Both Flubaroo and Socrative are easy to use and will make grading assignments, tests and quizzes more time efficient.  If you have any questions or would like help with either of these, send me an email at toni.carlson@watertown.k12.ma.us.

Pinterest and Twitter Cheat Sheets

Leandra Elion, Watertown High School reading teacher, found these excellent resources for using Twitter and Pinterest in your class.   These cheat sheets for Twitter and Pinterest help you use these apps in your classroom and with your students.  Here are a few samples of what you will find:
Twitter Cheat Sheet
Twitter 101—Key Terms
 Twitter—an online social networking platform that allows users to send and receive text-based message, or “tweets.”
 Tweets—text-based messages of up to 140 characters (letters, symbols, words, spaces, & p...
For more click:  Twitter Cheat Sheet

Tips, Tricks, & Words to the Wise*

Pinterest—a social media site that allows users to create and share virtual bulletin boards, or pinboards

Pin—an image added to a pinboard. A pin can be “pinned” from a website using the “Pin It” button or uploaded from images on a computer.

RePin—adding a pin from someone else’s board to one of your boards....
For more click:  Pineterest Cheat Sheet

Google updates Classroom

Last May, Google published Classroom, the easy way for teachers to share assignments and resources with students.  This was a Beta version with only volunteer teachers having access.  In September, Google launched Classroom to everyone using Google Apps for Education.  Now Google has updated Classroom with more easy to use features.  I know that several teachers in Watertown are using Classroom already, and more may want to try it out.

The five updates are:

• the ability to use Google Groups to invite students to Classroom, 
• sort students by first or last name, 
• mark assignments not submitted online as done, 
• export grades. 
• The update also adds additional control over discussion threads.

Are you interested in learning more about Classroom by Google?

You can get step-by-step directions of how to use Classroom by Google by clicking the below links.  Here is an example of how detailed Google's instructions are:

As a teacher, one of the first things you will do in Classroom is create a class for each of the classes you teach. In a class, you can add students, create assignments, post announcements, return reviewed assignments, and send messages to students.

Classes are interactive for students, too. They can comment on announcements that you make, share a post with classmates, or return an assignment.

To add a class:

1. Sign in to Classroom at classroom.google.com.
2. Click + at the top of the page and click Create class.
3. Enter the class name in the first text box.
4. Enter a short description in the second text box, such as section, grade level, or class time.
5. Click CREATE.

After you create a class, you can choose the image that is displayed for the class in the stream. To change the image from the default:

1. Open the class and click Change Photo at the bottom of the image.
2. Select an image from the gallery and click Pick Course Image.

Note: At this time, only the teacher of a class can change the image in the class stream.

You can also display a profile photo next to your name in both the class stream and on the class card on the home screen. Classroom uses your Gmail profile photo as your Classroom profile photo. See Selecting your Gmail picture for instructions on adding a photo.

From the home screen, you can rename or delete a class using the menu icon (three vertical dots) in the upper-right corner of the class card:

• To rename a class, click the menu icon and select Rename. Enter a new name and click SAVE.
• To delete a class, click the menu icon, select Delete, and click DELETE.

Here are links to more directions:

Sign in and get started

• Add a class
• Add a class resource page
• Invite students to a class
• Create an assignment
• Post an announcement
• Email a student
• View, grade, and return an assignment
• Remove a student from a class
• Change account settings
• Troubleshoot issues

Social Lesson Sharing: Share My Lesson

Share My Lesson is a social lesson sharing site created by teachers for teachers.  It is free and has lessons and resources ranging from Kindergarten through 12th grade as well as lessons for special populations.  They also include a data base of common core standards and resources to support them.

The site also allows you to create a log in and book save any lessons you want for now and in the future.

You can access the site here.  You can watch a short tutorial on how to use the site here.

The SAMR Model

How are you using technology in your classroom?  Here is a description of the four different ways technology can be used in the classroom.

Classroom for Google

Happy Summer Break!

Google Classroom is coming.  Below is a  a short video which will help you begin to learn what it can do.

Using Google Docs

This excellent article shows how Google Docs can change your classroom:

EDUCATION

Teaching In The Cloud: How Google Docs Are Revolutionizing The Classroom

• Tue, Nov 12, 2013
 
• by Mike Kalin
 

Schoology

Schoology is a free and easy to use Web 2.0 application that can help you and your students

• share work 
• have discussions
• collaborate with peers 
• analyze data
• integrate third-party programs such as Google Docs

So if you are looking for an easier version of a learning platform and something not quite as public as google sites, Schoology might be for you.  Last year, one of our middle school foreign language teachers started using it as a solution for students using iPads to share work with him.  He quickly began using all of the functions.  Quizes, collaboration and more.

You can find out more by clicking:  Schoology

Learn more about Google Mapping and Earth through a MOOC

Mapping with Google

Discover new ways to navigate the world around you with Google Maps and Google Earth.
Improve your use of new and existing features of Google's mapping tools.
Choose your own path. Complete a project using Google Maps, Google Earth, or both, and earn a certificate of completion.

Register

Google Maps Lessons & Project

Explore features of the new Google Maps. Learn to create and share custom maps using Google Maps Engine Lite. Taught by Google Maps Product Managers Daniel Demetri andBeth Liebert.

Google Earth Lessons & Project

Discover the world using Google Earth. Learn how to create and share a tour of interesting locations that tells a 3D geographical story. Taught by Google Earth Product ManagerPeter Birch.

Course Information

Mapping with Google will be offered from June 10 - June 24. It is a self-paced, online course where you will watch videos (or read text lessons) and apply the skills you learn.
During this course, you will be able to collaborate with a worldwide community of learners and experts in the class forum, Hangouts, and via Google+.
Course completion requires an internet-enabled desktop or laptop computer.

XtraMath in the classroom and at home

Allison Donovan, our Watertown elementary curriculum coordinator, recently clued me into XtraMath. This is a free, online application that helps students become fluent with their math facts.  It is easy to use and can be used online in the classroom and at home.  Teachers can set up classrooms for their students, access progress reports about how all students are doing and students can even do this work online at home.  Whether they are working in school or online, as long as they are logged into their classroom account, teachers can watch and assess students' progress.  To learn more and watch helpful videos about how to set up XtraMath for your classroom, go to https://www.xtramath.org/

Read&Write Chrome Extension

Today I met with Leandra Elion, the Watertown High School reading specialist who utilizes many great tools to help her students.  I showed her how to add extensions to student accounts (students have to sign into Chrome).  She wanted to add Read&Write to a student's account. It was shown to her by our elementary OT and resident assistive technology specialist Beth Lloyd.  Read&Write is a multi-faceted assistive technology free extension from Chrome that supports Google docs by supplying

• Text To Speech with Dual Synchronized Highlighting.
• Talking Dictionary
• Picture Dictionary
• Vocabulary Tool
• Study Skills tools to capture Google highlights

Here is the menu

Here is a screen cast showing you more about Read&Write