Tech-focused PD opportunity

I wanted to pass on information about the MERIT program through Foothill College. This is a technology-focused professional development program intended to support teachers in using technology to improve student learning outcomes.

If you are interested in:

•         Improving your technical skills,
•         Learning to use technology in a way that truly impacts student learning,
•         Earning units through Foothill College, AND
•         Getting PAID for all of this

Please check out the website here: https://sites.google.com/site/kcimeritprogram/ to learn more about the program and the time commitment and requirements.

Using GradeCam to grade multiple-choice assessments

With finals coming, many teachers have been interested in using GradeCam, which lets you create, print and grade scantron-like multiple-choice assessments using a webcam or document camera.

Everyone at Homestead already has an account established, with your classes and students already entered. Go to https://insight.gradecam.com to log in (if you don't remember your password, choose "reset password" and await an email, or contact Amity if you are still unsure).

Select the camera you plan to use, then try scanning a form. Your classes and students should already be there. You will need to set the GradeCam ID to 7 digits to match our student ID numbers, which you can either have students fill in manually or you can print as a pre-filled sheet.

To create an assessment, click on “forms” and “exam” to choose the number of questions and the style of questions. You can click on “advanced options” to change the answer format. You can create an answer key by either scanning a completed (correct) form or by clicking on the correct answers when you create the exam. You can also share assessments with other teachers.

When you initially go to scan a student, it will ask you to select a camera. Use your document camera or the webcam on your laptop. After that, you can scan a form yourself or even have students scan their own.

NOTE: some teachers have had difficulty getting this to work with their document cameras. Because this is a web-based tool, you can use it on any computer (so if a colleague has it working well, you can log in to GradeCam from their machine). We will have a GradeCam scanning station with document camera set up in the library for teachers who would like to use it there during finals week.

Visit http://goo.gl/ouk3ws for easy GradeCam tutorials on various features.

Making friends between Google Apps and MS Office

Since most of us still use Microsoft Office for a variety of things, here are a few ways to work with MS Office documents in Google Drive.

Friends foreveer

First, you can convert Office files to Google very easily -- now with one click from a Gmail attachment, or with one click from Google Drive. This gives you the additional benefit of just one document to manage and access from anywhere. Google has upgraded the supported Office formats, so most documents can convert easily (not just MS Word, PowerPoint and Excel).

But sometimes, you want to be able to edit an Office file from within Google Drive without converting it. In order to do this, you'll need to install the Google Office Editor Chrome extension, which you can find here, and be using the new Drive. Once you have this extension, you can double-click on any MS Office document and open it in Office Compatibility Mode to make and save edits in MS Office format.

Of course, you can convert it to Google format at any time as well.

Here's a brief video tutorial of the process, and a link to Google's help page about Office Compatibility Mode as well.

Tips for your LCD projector

Keep your projector happy and strong with these tips from the Tech Team: We’d like to add one more item to this list. Please be mindful when plugging in the VGA (video) cable into your computers and devices.


1.       Do not leave your projectors on during times when not in use. This includes lunchtime and ERAP periods, because these times can really add up.

2.       Turn off your projectors when you leave for the day, especially weekends. There is nothing worse for a projector than running it for an entire weekend.

3.       Secure your remotes in a hidden or locked location during weekends. Many classrooms are used during the weekends, so we don’t want the remotes going missing as they are very difficult to replace.

Notify Nancy and Denae (or Chris until December 8th) if you believe your projectors are being used over the weekend.

4.       Try carefully tightening the A/V cable if you are experiencing discoloration. Many people put in help tickets about odd blue or reddish hues, but this is usually an easily amended loose cable issue. This can also happen when a cable is plugged in lopsided or carelessly, which causes the pins to be bent and requires the cable to be replaced (not repaired). These cables run from $7 for a short cable to $45 for a long one.

5.       Put in a help ticket for any projector issues you may be having, including filter cleaning or bad lamps. We will clean the projector or replace the lamp as soon as we can.

Using technology for formative assessment in the classroom

I've done some brief trainings earlier this year on quick-response apps for BYOD classrooms, such as GetKahoot and PollEverywhere (check out the training materials here). Here is one great one that offers a little more flexibility in how students are able to respond, with options like open-ended text and free draw.

(This one, like the two above, work with students using phones as well as other devices, like laptops or Chromebooks.)

Infuse Learning

Teacher View

This web-based free tool allows you to create questions that can receive a variety of answers (draw responses, true/false, multiple choice, sort in order, open-ended text, numeric, and scale). You can even create a problem or a prompt, or upload an image and have the students annotate what you provide.

Students go to student.infuselearning.com through a Chrome or Safari browser and enter the Room ID to participate.

Teachers can make questions or quizzes ahead of time or can create questions on the fly. You can save results for grades or just use the results to determine your lesson targets.
I like this tool because of its flexibility and high engagement, and because I can save the responses or results if needed. The drawing response can be challenging on a small device (I probably wouldn't ask students to label a map, for instance) but for larger annotations it works well and setting up a teacher account is very easy.

Give it a shot! Go to http://www.infuselearning.com, click on "teacher login" in the upper right, and play around with it.

Using Chrome extensions for student accessibility and for personal efficiency

If you use the Chrome browser, there are many ways to enhance the experience through Chrome extensions. These are (mostly) free mini-programs that add extra features and functionality. Once you add them, they can be accessed from their icons on the side of your URL bar.

I use lots of these!

Here are some I've found useful for my own work (many are extremely useful for students as well; I've **ed the ones I've used with or recommended for students):

Capturing data:

• ** Awesome Screen Shot -- Capture a whole page or just a portion as an image. It also includes annotating tools. Great for letting School Loop know what kind of weirdness you are encountering. :)
• ** Screencastify -- Records the actions on your screen plus your voice (and your image if you choose). Great for recording a lecture/presentation for students who are absent or want to refer back to it, or for recording a frequently-used task or method. 
• Save as PDF -- Saves a webpage as a PDF (similar to below)
• ** Save to Google Drive -- Takes a webpage and turns it into a PDF that you can send straight to Google Drive.

Accessibility:

• ** Clearly -- Eliminates ads and other unnecessary content from blog posts, articles or websites to make them easy to read. You can also sync with Evernote if you use Evernote to organize your life.
• ** Select and Speak -- Takes highlighted text on a page and reads it aloud. You can set speed, voice gender, etc. Good for students who may struggle with reading.
• ** Read&Write for Google -- Many excellent features including speech recognition, reading text aloud, suggesting text, highlighting and annotating, etc. CAUTION: The premium version of this is NOT free for students -- teachers can get a free yearly premium subscription but students would be limited to the functionality in Google Docs. Still useful for speech-to-text for students with difficulty writing or typing. 

Workflow/Efficiency

• 1-click Timer -- Fast and easy way to keep track of elapsed time for assessments or classroom activities
• ** Black Menu for Google -- Gives you instant access to all your Google Apps from the browser window. Very helpful when you use Google Apps and Drive a lot. 
• ** CleanPrint -- Strips out all unnecessary content before printing or saving a webpage. Saves lots of paper!
• ** Clipboard History -- Records the text that you have copied (goes back 14 days). Great for when you need to store multiple chunks of text simultaneously.
• Goo.gl URL shortener -- Shrinks URLs for ease in posting, emailing or writing. Great for anything where you need to quickly disseminate a website.
• One Tab - Whenever you have too many tabs open, One Tab converts them all into a list, which reduces memory load on your browser.
• ** World Data Finder -- search for relevant charts and data when reading online articles. Good research/background info tool.

There are many, many more extensions to choose from. Go to the Chrome Web Store to install any of these or to browse their other offerings, especially those organized by Collection (there are High School and Education collections as well as others). 

Please share if you have a useful extension that isn't in the list above!

A different way to present

As teachers, we do a lot of presenting and sometimes the same old PowerPoint or Google Slides gets old. Haiku Deck tries to break the cycle of bullet points and clip art with a simple (think "haiku") image-heavy design. Haiku Deck offers thousands of beautiful, well-categorized images to choose from (or use your own, of course). It's free, web-based, and can be installed as a Chrome app.


10 Tips to Transform Your Presentations - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

If it's not a full presentation, but just an image or infographic you need, check out Canva, which even offers "design school" for the less aesthetically capable among us.

Google Apps training

During October, we held a number of training sessions for various features of Homestead's Google Apps for Education account. If you missed them, you can find the documents here.

Educational technology for Homestead teachers

This blog will be a place to gather and curate all things ed-tech taking place at Homestead High School. Tech updates, new apps or technologies, new ideas and suggestions for integration, best practices, teacher successes, archived information ... we will keep it all here to attempt to build on the knowledge base we already have.