What I Have Learned, Thought About, and Created: Week of 1.15.18

Monday

I have a lot of books that I haven't read through. This year, my goal is to tackle some of these educational books in chunks. One example is Alice Keeler's book 50 Things to Go Further with Google Classroom. If I were to sit down and read the book, I wouldn't be able to absorb all the tips as well so I'm trying to set aside some time to tackle just one tip a week. This week, I read tip #50 (don't ask me why I started on the last tip, this is against all rules I have for reading books :)!).  She suggested using Google Forms where students reflect on their weekly progress and what they have been learning. With the autocrat add-on in Sheets, these can be set up to email to parents anytime a new response is added.  I love the idea of this!

Tuesday

I'm reading Conscious Discipline: Building Resilient Classrooms. Chapter 9 is Positive Intent.  This quote made me pause and think. It is so very true.

Wouldn't life, in general, be so much better if we believed the best in others?

Wednesday

For something a little lighter today, I learned that Texas girl does not have clothes designed to stand outside when it is 13 degrees!  My elementary wardrobe has grown with all types of holiday attire (get ready GES, I have already purchased some Valentine clothes as well!), but now it is growing with winter layers as well!

Thursday

Stick Around App was introduced to me today by my friend, Kerissa Bearce (side note: if you aren't having regular 1:1 PLCs, you are missing out!). The first thing that caught my eye was the Venn Diagram template. I know teachers using iPads have missed the Venn application from Read Write Think. There were quite a few other templates for students to organize their thoughts. I'm looking forward to exploring this further.

Friday

I'm a little behind in my Google update emails, but Google blogged about a few minor changes to some apps in GSuite.  There is nothing big in this update. However, I now need to learn about Alt text! 

To add a line or page break in Docs:
Before: Insert > Page break or Column break
After: Insert > Break > Page break or Column break

To add Alt text to a shape in Docs or Slides:
Before: Select shape > Format > Alt text. This option will be removed from the menu.
After: Right click on shape > Alt text. This is the new way to add alt text to a shape.

To change a shape in Slides:
Before: Select shape > Format > Change shape. This option will be removed from the menu.
After: Right click on shape > Change shape. This is the new way to change a shape.

The HTML view in Slides is being removed from the menu.
Before: View > HTML
After: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P

If you would like to receive updates on GSuite applications via an email, you can go to the full blog post here and subscribe by email!

These are the few of the ways that I thought about this week. Where did you find your learning? Mine came from books, collaboration, and following a blog!

What I Learned at #ISTE17 Day 2

My brain is starting to stay in a state of fog! There is so much learning here at ISTE. I've heard there are around 15,000 people in attendance. The sessions are full of information, but the conversations are also rich with learning. I mentioned yesterday that relationships were important to my learning and they are making a repeat appearance in today's top 5.

Here are the top 5 things I learned:

Relationships Part 2

1.  Today's relationships that grew my practice came in the form of the "Playground" that focused on Ed Tech Coaching. I have enjoyed the playground feature of the conference. Each day has a different theme with tables for small group learning and conversations. Most of today's playground sessions focused on Instructional coaching. Here is a link to the schedule with many presentations linked. There were some books that were suggested to read that I am going to explore further:

• The Global Education Guidebook: Humanizing K-12 Classrooms Worldwide Through Equitable Partnerships
• The Global Educator
• Cognitive Coaching: Developing Self-Directed Leaders and Learners
• Made to Stick
• Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling For Less
• Learning First, Technology Second: The Educators Guide to Designing Authentic Lessons

2.  Yesterday, I mentioned Flipgrid (and I still need 10 people to respond to a post with a quick video reflection on something they have learned this summer at https://flipgrid.com/3d0e87 ). Tonight, while enjoying the evening at the rooftop pool, Erin shared with me an innovative way to use Flipgrid. The teacher created a Flipgrid and sent the link to parents and asked for them to respond with a video on their experience with the upcoming content.  During the classroom learning, the teacher played video clips of the parents' responses. What a fun way to bring relevance to the learning and connect the parent to the classroom!

3. While in the pool, Kerissa shared a hidden gem within Chrome!  On the iPad or other mobile devices with the Chrome app installed, pull down to reveal the Spotlight search and search for "QR".

Select "Scan QR Code" and you can scan directly within your browser!  No need for Chrome extensions or QR reading apps!

 

Thank you, Kerissa, for sharing your learning and your willingness to pose for my picture! I'm sure there was so much more learning gleaned from relationships, but I am going to move on to learning from my sessions!

4.  I went to a great session on giving feedback within Google Apps led by Eric Curts (one of my favorite bloggers!). Eric suggested giving video feedback by creating a Screencastify as you review the document and then putting a link to the video in a comment on the document. Your students hear your voice and see exactly what you are referencing on their paper!  Susan wrote a post on Screencastify earlier this year that you can read here. You can access Eric's full presentation on his website!  If you don't read closely, you might miss this gem for ELA teachers with pre-canned comments with links to learning resources for the student!

5. Google Forms

I was invited to attend a roundtable meeting with our Texas Google Edu representative. In this meeting, we gave feedback on GSuite Apps and heard about updates that were forecasted to come soon. In the midst of all the ISTE learning, I missed the announcement of the updates to Google Forms and the ability to batch grade questions in quizzes.  Here is a tweet from Google with an animated GIF to show the steps.  Ricard Byrne at Free Technology for Teachers also wrote a post to share a little more about this new feature!

Bonus: Take a moment to explore a new resource announced by Google yesterday!

www.google.com/earth/education 

There are so many other things that I learned today that will have to be a later post. I'll leave you today with a couple of quotes from Alice Keeler to ponder!

Signing off at 12:45 AM to get ready for another day of learning tomorrow!