K.I.S.S.

Technology Integration

While trying to find inspiration for today's blog, I remembered a past blog that I read.

💋KISS - Keep it Simple Sunshine.🌞

While visiting classrooms this week, we saw some great learning with the use of technology - and none of it was a HUGE project. When integrating technology, it takes practice, reflection, tweak, and repeat until perfected. Just within two days, students in classrooms at four different elementary campuses:

practiced how to sign into a Chromebook 💻

created Popplets showing place value in different formats

had an online discussion in Padlet

went on a live safari 🐅

played Plickers in math class

created a slide show in google slides to review nouns

worked on a variety of assignments using Google Classroom📝

The 4 C's could be seen in all classes using technology. Students were working together to help classmates(collaboration), finding pictures and colors to give their assignment their own personal touch (creativity), solving and showing what they know other than paper and pencil (critical thinking), and talking and sharing (communication). 

Students were engaged, learning, and sharing with others. 

Free High-Quality Fiction and Nonfiction Literature

Website Wednesday

CommonLit offers a free collection of fiction and nonfiction literature for teachers to use in the classroom to help strengthen student literacy skills in grades 5-12. It has a wide selection of poems, short stories, news articles, historical documents, and excerpts from classic literature. 

Teachers can create a class, assign assignments, and monitor student progress. With each selection a teacher also has the option to use the teacher guide, related media, or paired text suggestions. Searching for articles or literature is made even easier with the Search by Theme option. Assignments can be assigned to an entire class or individual students. This enables a teacher to tailor the learning to the student's needs and interest.

Text that is assigned to students comes with many other features and useful tools. The toolbar that accompanies the selection contains a highlighter, dictionary, translator, and text to speech. Text-Dependent and Discussion questions are also included with each selection.  Because the selections can be saved as a PDF, students can save that in their google drive and then open it in KAMI to use all the annotation tools that KAMI provides. *KAMI is a free app and extension that is compatible with google classroom and can be found in the Chrome Web Store.  

Instructional Technology October Newsletter

The Instructional Technology October Newsletter is here!

Click on the link to check out some great tech integration tips, apps, websites and more!!

OCTOBER NEWSLETTER

In This Issue . . .

>> Digital Citizenship Week and the PSA Challenge 2016

>> October and November/December Trainings

>> NEW SAISD Tech Badge Program

>> Tech Tips, Awesome Apps and Going Google

Read All About It - Google Newspapers

Google has done it again. Google News Archive (http://news.google.com/newspapers) provides hundreds of newspapers from different countries and different centuries. I read one newspaper from 1738 and another from 1980 - Amazing! I love that technology can preserve these resources for us to access and use.

A special that you to the technology specialists at Brenham ISD - #BISDWired. I found this resource on their blog - http://brenhamtechdaily.blogspot.com. If you haven't taken a look at it, you should. You won't be disappointed.

Discovery Education - A Video Library and So Much More

Our school district pays for a subscription to Discovery Education for all teachers. Discovery Education contains thousands of videos, images, audio files, articles and interactives that you can use with your students in class. 

Here are just a few things you can do with Discovery Education - 
1. Download videos and video clips to use in your lessons.
2. Download and use images.
3. Download and use audio files.
4. Access lesson plans, an interactive calendar and other professional development resources (Teacher Center).
5. Create and manage classes and assign videos and projects to your students.
6. Create writing prompts, assignments, quizzes and boards for your students.
7. Give access to students so they can get to all the content too.

If you are interested in using Discovery Education, you just need an account. Contact me at techtraining@saisd.org and I'll give you a campus code to get you started. If you want your students to have accounts, just let me know and we'll get them set up.

Kids.gov - I'ts Not Just for Kids

Don't let the name fool you. Kids.gov may be geared towards students, but there is great information on the site for everyone. 

Kids.gov provides resources in all subject areas plus online safety, jobs and careers, and exercise and fitness.

Each category takes you to well thought out lists of websites for your students to use for learning. The site is filled to the top with options, and that may be a little overwhelming for students. I would recommend teachers review the site and find the exact links they want to students to use. 

Art Made Easier with Hello Oil Painter & Hello Water Color

My father is an artist. When I was younger I remember going driving with him through the country so he could take photos of landscapes he wanted to recreate on canvas. He painted beautiful landscapes of bluebonnets, towering oak trees, farmhouses and fields. He tried, with much patience, to teach me his craft. Needless to say, I am not the artist he is, but I have found that I can channel my inner artist using apps on my iPad. 

Hello Oil Painter is an easy & fun oil painting app with a palette that lets you mix and manipulate colors. The free version doesn't provide too many colors, but with the mix option, you can create your own. 

Hello Water Color is a watercolor app with several brush types and a pencil to outline your designs. I was impressed by the realistic look of paintings. The full version comes with additional brushes, colors and colored pencils.

Download the free versions to see how you like them. The full versions are only $1 each. I think students would enjoy using these apps to create illustrations for books, projects or designs.

Get Your Game On with Quizziz

Last week I posted about a website called Kahoot! It's a great site that let's you create game-based activities for students  - allowing them to use any device to interact with the game. It is one of my favorite ways to do a quick assessment in class. 

Well, move over Kahoot - there's a new game in town and it's called Quizizz. I still love Kahoot, but Quizizz is another site you can use to get your kids engaged in learning. Lori Gracey, Executive Director of TCEA, just posted an article about Quizizz on the TCEA blog. Here's a link to it - Gamifying Learning with Quizizz.

There's plenty of room for more than one gaming site. I don't think you will hear any student complaints. Game on!

Let the Games Begin with Kahoot

Who doesn't love a good game show? It's suspenseful, exciting and anxiety inducing. The Price is Right, Wheel of Fortune, and Pyramid are some of my favorites and now Kahoot can join the ranks. Kahoot is a website that allows teachers to create multiple choice questions with images, text and video. Students then join the game using a code provided by the teacher. The faster the student answers the more point they get. Of course, correct answers also get points. Best of all, the site works on any device - laptop, macbook, iPad, Chromebook, smart phone . . . anything with internet access.

Here's a handout to get things started for you. I promise your students will love it!

Channel Your Inner Picasso with Drawing Box

Drawing Box is a free drawing app with several tools and a million colors to choose from - maybe not a million colors, but close. There is also a paid version of this app for $2.99. I think it might be worth the investment. We'll talk about the paid tools momentarily.

In the free version you have access to various paper types and backgrounds as well as pencils, brushes, rollers, stamps, a symmetry tool and paint colors. You can create up to 6 drawings but each drawing can be saved the camera roll so once you've made your masterpiece you can save it and then delete it to make room for more.

The paid version provides more features such as color mixing, tool pressure sensitivity, importing pictures and the ability to export your drawing as a movie. This last feature looks really cool - it shows from start to finish how a drawing was developed. 

Overall, I give this app to thumbs up - even the free version is great. There are also Drawing Box videos available on YouTube you might want to check out. They show an older version of the app, but it will give you the general idea.

The Life of a Google Doc Using the Draftback Extension

I just recently found out about the extension - Draftback. Basically this extension allows you to see the life of a Google Doc - from start to finish and with all the revisions in between. 

Here's how to get started - 

1. Install Draftback from the Chrome Web Store and it will appear in the top right corner of your Chrome browser next to the Omnibox (It's a gray box with a D). 

2. Open a Google Doc and and then click the Draftback button in your document. 

3. Draftback will process the revisions. When it is complete, click View.

4. A new tab will open with the Draftback version of the document and it will begin playing automatically. You can pause it at anytime. You can also use the slide bar to increase or decrease the speed. 

This is a great tool for teachers and students. Teachers and students can see document revisions to help better understand the student's writing process. Teachers can also see the total revisions in a document and what content was used to create it.

One final note - In order to use Draftback on a document, you have to have editing rights.

Venn Diagram from Read, Write, Think

I love everything Read, Write, Think produces, so it was no surprise that I also loved the app Venn Diagram. It has a very user friendly interface for students so it doesn't take them long to be up and running. Students can create a 2 or 3 circle venn diagram and add items to each circle. Each item can also have a description so if students want to print out their creations, they will have two pages - one page with the diagram and items and another page with the items and descriptions.

Students can save their work if they don't finish in the allotted time because they have to create an account to get started. Don't worry, their account consists of their name only so you don't have to be concerned about complicated account creation. Students will have to go back to the same iPad to find their account because it is tied to the iPad. When students complete their work, they can save it to the camera roll or email it to the teacher.

Read, Write, Think also has a web version of the Venn Diagram program so if you don't have enough iPads for all of your kiddos, don't worry. They can grab a computer or Chromebook and get started.

Infographics with Piktochart

According to Dictionary.com, an infographic a visual presentation of information in the form of a chart, graph, or other image accompanied by minimal text, intended to give an easily understood overview, often of a complex subject. So infographics take a lot of information and put it in a form that easy to understand - sign me up. Who wouldn't want to use this?

Piktochart makes it so easy to create infographics. You and  your students can use your Google account to sign in to the website. Click Create a New Piktochart and then choose from pre-designed templates or start from scratch. You can add shapes, charts, images, backgrounds, and more. 

Here are two small clips of infographics I've created - 

A great resource for you comes from Kathy Schrock - Infographics as a Creative Assessment. She provides so much information about infographics and how they can be used. There's a lot on the page, but take some time and look through it - it's worth it.

Google Slides & PowerPoint - More than Just Presentation Tools

Google Slides and PowerPoint are both great tools when it comes to presentations. They both have some of the same features, although I think PowerPoint is a more robust program. In either case, they can be used for more than just a presentations. Both programs can be used to make newsletters, posters or flyers.

By default these programs are set up to contain slides - but did you know you can change the size of the slide to match any paper size?

In Google Slides - 
Click File > Page Setup
By default the page size is Widescreen 16:9 - click on that option and then select Custom Size. Type in the size you want the page to be - 8.5 X 11, 11 X 17, 8.5 X 14 - whatever your heart desires. It can even be a size that doesn't fit your printer (you can save it as a graphic and send it to be printed at Office Max or other store that does poster size printing).

In PowePoint - 
Click Design > Slide Size
Select Custom Slide Size > Click the down arrow on page size and select Custom. Type in the size you want and click OK.

Now that your page is set up like a normal piece of paper, you can add text boxes, graphics, shapes - whatever you want. It's easy to create a layout because everything is an object so it can be moved and re-sized easily. You can also use multiple pages (slides) to put together a large poster - just tape the pages together for the finished product.

BOOM @#! POW !&@ - Strip Designer - The Perfect Comic Creator

Strip Designer is the perfect Comic Strip app. It isn't free, but the price tag is small in comparison to what you can do with the app - only $2.99.

Strip Designer starts by letting you select a category template and then choose how many windows you want to include on the comic strip page. You aren't limited to one page either - you can create an entire comic book if you wish. 

Just tap in a window to add a photo. Once the photo is on the page, you can make edits to it. You can also add speech balloons, stickers, effect text and even additional windows.

Once the comic is complete, you can export it to Google Drive, OneDrive or Drop Box. This is a great tool to let student creativity shine! I would love to see Romeo and Juliet retold by students using a comic book.

Custom Graphics with Canva

Canva is a website (and an app) that helps you create beautiful graphics to use in social media, slide shows, blog posts (my graphic was made with Canva), documents and more.

You can also log in with your Google account so that makes it easy to remember your user information. :)

From the website, just select the type of graphic you want to create - it's ok if you don't see the exact thing you are looking for, you can do a custom size graphic as well. Also remember, just because it says social media as the graphic type don't let if fool you. You can still use that graphic for many things. Click the + sign to see more graphics options. Finally, there are free tools and paid tools. I've never paid for a graphic, but if I need to, they are very inexpensive. I encourage you to take a look at this site - you won't be sorry.

Sketch, Draw and Take Notes with Paper by Fifty Three

Paper by Fifty Three is a free app that allows you to sketch, draw on images, take notes, make to do lists and more. Just create a space and start adding pages to it.

This is a great tool for students to draw out a process, show their work on math problems, draw pictures to illustrate a book or just take notes. 

Another great feature - you and your students can use your school google account to sign in so you don't have to remember ANOTHER account name and password.

Finally, once you have a completed space, you can share it as a presentation and save it to your Google Drive or OneDrive.

Google Cultural Institute

The Google Cultural Institute was launched in 2011. It currently contains over 6 million items including photos, videos and documents. 

I have to say, the Google Cultural Institute is absolutely A-MA-ZING! There are exhibits and collections from museums and archives from around the world. You can also create your own galleries. 

On the home page, you'll find link to the Google Art Project, Historic Moments and World Wonders. Each of these contain their own content including high resolution images (you can zoom in so close you can see the brush strokes in a painting), historical photos and documents and unbelievable views of historical buildings.

Take a few minutes (or an hour or so) to visit this site - you'll be so glad you did.

Multimedia Text Sets

I am in the beginning stages of acquiring my Level 2 Google Educator Certification. During the process, I work through training materials provided by Google - that's where I came across Multimedia Text Sets. Now, this may not be new to some of you, but it certainly is to me.

Multimedia Text Sets are a great way to organize activities for your students. You can use them for a flipped lesson or project. Here's how it works. Set up a Google Doc that students can view (they can make a copy of it from the viewable version if needed). The document contains a table that lists out the different parts of a project or lesson. Step 1 might be to view a video and then complete a Google Doc to answer questions. Step 2 might have a Thinglink link that student explore to begin gathering data for an Infographic. It creates logical sections for students as they work through the lesson. I know some people might use a website or other shared files to accomplish the same thing, but I loved how this was set up - so easy to see the plan of action for our students. Here's a link to a sample set. 

Adobe Post - Creating Beautiful Social Graphics

I've only recently learned about an app called Adobe Post. It's an iPhone app, but it works on the iPad too. Using Adobe Post, you can quickly create beautiful graphics that are meant to be posted to social media. Each image is formatted so it will fit perfectly into any social media application, but you aren't limited to that use. It would be a great tool to create an introduction graphic for a video or slide show. You could also use it as a signature graphic for e-mails or use an Adobe Post graphic in conjunction with other graphics in a collage.

Adobe Post is a free app, but you will need to create an Adobe ID to use it. If you are already using Adobe Voice or Adobe Slate you can use the same ID for this account as well. That's one of the things I like about Adobe - it saves all of your work under your ID so you don't have to worry about losing any of your pictures if you happen to share a device with someone else.

To create a graphic there are four simple steps:

1. Click the + sign and select a graphic (yours or theirs - and they have some high quality graphics).
2. Select a Palette.
3. Enter Text.
4.Export it.

Inside the app, you can change almost anything - so you have a lot of flexibility to create some amazing graphics.