Using Google Forms to Simplify Marking with Rubrics

By taking a few minutes to set up a Google form, you can drop your highlighter and pen and click away to get your marking done. All your results are saved in a spreadsheet for easy reference later.

Once you're comfortable with that, add on a script and have students receive their results by email once you've marked their work!

This will be covered in our Tuesday Tech-in-20 session on January 21st (12:10-12:30) if you are interested.

Step 1: Set Up the Form

This strategy is very effective when you re-use the same rubric over and over throughout the year. We developed this example rubric for assessing problem solving in math - the problems change throughout the year, but the rubric does not. A similar rubric has been created for evaluating oral presentations in French.

 

If you need help with creating a Google form, just let me know. 

Once the basic form has been created, you will want to:

• replace email addresses with students you will be marking repeatedly using this rubric (suggestion: put yourself in this list too so that you can use yourself for testing that it all works)
• set response destination (click the button to set the spreadsheet where the results will be saved)
  
  

Step 2: Try it out!

Go to the live form and enter some data. What assignment is it? Choose yourself as the student, and then assess your work.

Now check the response spreadsheet - you will see the summary of all the results you have recorded. As you use the form to record assessments over time, these results can be sorted to examine trends.

Step 3: Email students their results (entirely optional)

Your next step is to communicate the results to the students. If you want to conference with each of them, you have your marks handy in the spreadsheet, but it is even easier to click a few buttons and have the boys receive a copy of their assessment in their Gmail inbox!

Chad Kafka has a very thorough explanation on how to add the Form Emailer script to the spreadsheet and then configure it so that your students receive an email each time you hit submit on the form. I have also compiled a video tutorial showing you how to walk through this process. For example, a student might receive this message:

If you're interested in making this work for you, let me know.

Here's a 12-minute video tutorial showing you how it all works:

- Sarah

Padlet

Thanks to the few that attended our first Tech-in-20 session this week. We quickly reviewed the online sticky-note tool called Padlet.

Here are some of our notes from the session:

A few examples:

• Brainstorming ideas - http://padlet.com/wall/socialmedia7L http://padlet.com/wall/6jnetiquette
• Vocabulary - http://padlet.com/wall/1rbmyjr47x
• Collecting resources - http://padlet.com/wall/2scfnhq2j5
• Displaying work - http://padlet.com/wall/ucc6-7photography
• Weekly planner - http://padlet.com/wall/PadCal (organize greeters or class announcers?)
• Managing projects - http://padlet.com/wall/kanban_wall

Try it by posting on a padlet:

http://padlet.com/wall/ucctechin20 - use this padlet to post ideas for other tech in 20 sessions

Creating your own account:

• Go to padlet.com
• Click green “Login or Signup” in top right
• Choose red “Login with Google” button - grant access
• Create a new wall
• modify wall properties with the gear on the right side
• title
• description
• wallpaper
• layout - freeform vs streamed
• privacy (generally, hidden link works well)
• moderate posts - turn this on if you are making your padlet public
• notifications
• address - customize this if you want the url to be something familiar for sharing with your class

The Padlet Blog is a good source of ideas too!

 

Introducing Tech in 20

When forming our ICT Philosophy, teachers requested a variety of PD. Since many people are available from 12:10-12:30, we are introducing Tech in 20 - learn new ICT tools and techniques in just 20 minutes!

We will support a variety of tools for either the laptop, iPad or both.

Every Tuesday from 12:10-12:30 in the library back room.

On Tuesday, October 29th we'll start with an introduction to Padlet. 

Padlet (formerly known as Wallwisher) is a collaborative tool that organizes ideas on a wall (like sticky notes). It can be used for brainstorming, sharing, planning etc. You and your students can post text, photos, videos and then organize them as you see fit. Click here to see several examples of how it can be used.

See below for other upcoming Tech in 20 sessions!

Easy Notebook Access for Students!!!

Hello all,

Over the last few years I've been working on creating a library of Smartboard Notebook files to teach various grammatical concepts and to impart reading strategies in French. The only part that I needed to improve was having more kids interact on the Smartboard at one time. Solutions included:

a) Smartboard table: But was mostly used by kindergarten and really young kids, some of the files did not transfer successfully but worst of all was the limited ability of the class to view it. I suppose a work around could have been to hook up a projector to the table;

b) Notebook for Ipad: That's right it's out. However, its not very successful. There seems to be one particularly annoying glitch which is, once you upload a single file, it's the only one it'll run until you delete the app and re-install;

Finally, with one:one it looks like this may all be possible:

There is a website: http://express.smarttech.com/# which allows you to run Notebook files through the website.

Instructions:

1. Share a Notebook file with your students through google drive. Don't worry, you cannot preview notebook on google drive, but it still works
2. Have the students place the file that was shared with them into My Drive 
3. Tell your students to go to http://express.smarttech.com/# 
4. Next, they click on Open and Existing Notebook File
5. Next go to Google Drive in the Finder and select the file the teacher shared.

A New Year, A New Calendar

Welcome Back!

The transfer from our FileMaker calendar to the Prep School Events Google Calendar was made in July. Everything went smoothly and now we should only have one calendar to worry about.

You should already have the Prep School Events calendar listed in your Other Calendars section. If not, scroll to the bottom of this post for a video tutorial on how to add this calendar to your own.

We have done our best to build in an event approval process into this calendar as well. In the past, we would input all the details for an event into FileMaker and wait to see our event appear on the calendar if it was approved. Hopefully the process outlined here is fairly straightforward.

Adding an Event

This tutorial demonstrates the event approval process from choosing a time to having the event either approved or declined. The key steps involved are as follows:

• Find an appropriate time in the Prep School Events Calendar
• Add the event to your own calendar
• Invite the Prep School Events calendar (under rooms - uncheck the availability box)
• Add details in the description section or use the template
•  Wait for an email
• If approved - finalize your plans
• If declined, comments will be provided. Delete the event from your calendar and start again.

Viewing the Prep School Events Calendar

If you don't already have the Prep School Events Calendar (or the Holmes Lab or Library calendars), this tutorial can help you add them to your own calendar under the "other calendars" section. Remember, you can always turn these calendars on and off by clicking on the coloured box next to the calendar name.

Accessing Your Google Drive Offline

In most cases, Google Drive is a great spot for creating, storing and sharing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The only time it is inconvenient is when you don't have an internet connection and would like to access your Google Drive files.

Given that summer is upon us and many of you may want to access your documents from the cottage, the boat, the campsite, or even planes or trains, here is how to sync your documents so that you can still work offline!

The following information is provided by Google about using Drive offline:

• You'll first need to set it up. Enabling offline access is easy, and it takes just a minute. As soon as you do, all of your Google documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and drawings will be made available for offline viewing and editing. Follow the directions below to enable your offline access.
• Set up computers individually. If you want to enable offline access on both your laptop and desktop computers, you'll need to set it up twice — once on each computer.
• It's Chrome-only. Offline access is unavailable in other browsers. But if you haven't already, give Chrome a try!
• It's not currently available for all of your stuff. Check out the chart below to see what types of files you can view and edit while offline.
• It only syncs files that are in "My Drive". Any documents that have been shared with you and you haven't dragged into My Drive will not be accessible offline.

Enabling Offline Access

1. Open the Chrome browser and go to drive.google.com.
2. Click "More" on the left sidebar part of your screen. Select "Offline".
3. The Chrome browser has apps just like your smartphone or iPad. You need to install the Google Drive App within the Chrome browser. Click the blue "Get the App" button. If the app is already installed, it will say so and you can skip this step.
• You will be taken to the Chrome web store. Click Add to Chrome to add the Google Drive App to your Chrome browser.
• Return to your Google Drive - select "Offline" under "More" in the left sidebar
4. On the right side of the screen, click the blue "Enable Offline" button. It may take a few minutes to sync your files.

Once you have enabled offline access, you can access your Google Drive files straight from your Chrome browser. You will notice that you are offline because all icons in Chrome's new tab will be greyed out except for the Google Docs and Drive icons.

  If you have any questions or would like some help setting up offline access, just ask!

Screencasting 101

Technology can be used to:

Consume content e.g. read, research, access multimedia

Create content e.g. share original writing, audio or video recordings

Curate content e.g. organize content created by yourself or others in a way that others can also access it

Screencasts are one way that both students and teachers can create online content.

What is a Screencast?

Screencast

noun
A screencast, also known as a screen capture, is a digital recording of what is happening on your computer screen and enhanced with audio narration to create a movie that can be shared with others to explain something.

Not to be confused with a screenshot which is just a picture of what is on your computer screen or podcast which is strictly audio.

Some examples of screencasts:

• A screencast created on a laptop for this blog to explain how to add a Chrome extension that removes distractions from YouTube windows:
  

   
• A screencast created by a grade 4 UCC student using an iPad to explain how to determine the area of a rectangle:
  

  
  

  
  
  
• A screencast created by a PD organization using an iPad to explain how Google Drive and iPads can be used as a Portfolio:

Screencasting in the Classroom

Possible uses of teacher-created screencasts in the classroom include:

• providing "just in time" lessons - students can watch videos that describe how to do something at the time that they need to know
• "flipping" the classroom - students could watch a screencast for homework and then discuss or apply it in class the next day
• differentiation by “cloning the teacher” - record a lesson for only part of the class to utilize while you work with another part of the class
• part of a “sub plan” - leave directions for students when you are away

Possible uses of student-created screencasts in the classroom include:

• demonstrating their understanding of a topic
• assisting peers with understanding a concept
• reviewing what has been learned

How to Create a Screencast

The easiest laptop application that we already have on our laptops to create a screencast is Quicktime Player - it's a misnomer, it's a recorder as well as a player. This video is a explains how to do it.

There are several iPad apps that make creating screencasts very easy. In general, they all look like a white board and allow you to write on them and record your voice at the same time. It all plays back like a movie. In addition some allow you to import images and other videos. In this review for Appolicious.com, Jennie Magiera compares some of the pros and cons of some popular screencasting apps. Some how-to videos and classroom examples can be found below for the following apps:

• Explain Everything
• DoodlecastPro
• Show Me
• Educreations
• ScreenChomp
• Knowmia Teach
• Doceri

As always, if you would like to explore any of these applications with someone, please do not hesitate to contact us. Also, feel free to add your thoughts about these applications, other screencasting apps you know or possible classroom uses in the comments section below.