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.

Want to Learn to Code?

Coding for the Masses:

Many of you have probably already been exposed to the code.org movement. Code.org is a not for profit organization dedicated to growing computer programming education. They have received a lot of attention in the past year with high profile celebrities giving testimonials and a splash of media exposure. If you haven't checked out the video on their site I highly recommend you do. I'm very interested in hearing your thoughts on the ideas presented in the video.

During the month of June, Connectedlearning.tv will be presenting a four part series of webinars titled "Coding is for Everybody: Learning through Creating, Personalizing, Sharing, and Reflecting with Scratch". The full description of the webinar series can be found on their site but here is a small excerpt: 

"Many people view computer programming as a narrow technical skill, useful only for a small subset of the population. But coding can be for everyone, enabling people with diverse interests to develop new strategies for thinking, learning, and expressing themselves." 

The live webinars run on June 3rd, 10th, 17th, and 24th. The agenda and topics are on the site. They post their recorded webinars shortly after they are completed so if you can't make the live broadcast you can always watch it later. I'm planning to watch all four parts of the series and would love to sit down with anybody else who watched it and discuss the ideas presented in them. 

Happy Coding,

Ryan Archer 

Note from Lara: For the last couple of years we have taught Scratch in grades 4 and 6 here at the Prep and this year we began an optional Scratch Club. Scratch has been a part of our computer image for years - check it out!

Online Student Response Systems

A few weeks ago we talked about using Google Forms for formative assessments or surveys.

Here are two more online tools that teachers can use to collect information on the fly. These tools work well on both tablets and laptops and all responses are anonymous. If you want to track individual responses, your best bet is to design your own Google Form.

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Socrative

"Take a snapshot of student thinking through real time formative assessment. It's super easy to gather responses and get whole class participation. Just choose your question type, ask a question, and wait for responses."

Socrative is an online student response system that allows teachers to construct their own online quizzes and see student responses immediately. If you don't have the time to design the quiz ahead of time, you can ask the questions orally in class and have students respond online. You can then discuss their results immediately. Multiple choice, true/false and short answer questions are all possible.

What do you need to do? Sign up for an account at socrative.com. When setting up your account, you will choose a room number. This room number is all the students need to connect to you to complete your quizzes or provide feedback. See the video below for an example of how it works.

Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere is primarily designed to allow students to text their responses to a poll or quiz and have their responses displayed immediately. Responding via a website is possible too, so this tool will work quite nicely in our one-to-one environment.

With Poll Everywhere, you can create your quiz with multiple choice or open-ended questions and receive feedback immediately as students complete the quiz.

What do you need to do? Sign up for an account at polleverywhere.com. Since we will want our students to respond by using a web interface instead of texting, you will want to reserve your own polling response page at http://www.polleverywhere.com/my/pollev. Once you set that up, your students can go to a fixed site (like http://www.pollev.com/msbarclay) to enter responses to any poll you run. At any time you can launch a poll and then clear your response results and start again. See the video below to see how it works.

As always, if you would like to try out either of these tools, just let Sarah or Lara know!