February 2023 - Instructional Technology Newsletter

Google Docs

Google Forms

Low Key PD

The Hebron Instructional Technology YouTube Channel now has complete tutorials available for Google Docs and Google Forms will be finished by the end of February. What do I mean by complete? Pretty much every menu option in Google Docs is explained either in its own tutorial video or as part of another video covering multiple menu options. For Google Forms, every question style in Google Forms and pretty much every possible setting and option is explained in its own tutorial video, including themes, quizzes, response analysis, and so much more. 

These playlists give you the opportunity to learn specific skills for Google Docs or Google Forms or engage in a deep-dive study to maximize your learning. More Google apps will follow in the coming months as the tutorials are produced.

ParentSquare

Earlier this year MSD of Boone Township rolled out ParentSquare, an online community site for Hebron Schools students, parents, and employees. Links to the ParentSquare platform, the ParentSquare quick start page, and the ParentSquare YouTube channel have been added to the Hebron Schools bookmark folder.

ParentSquare allows teachers to communicate with both students and parents en masse with notes, messages, calendar events, and much more. Many parents have already activated their ParentSquare accounts and are staying in the loop with active teachers. Are you one of them?

January 2023 - Instructional Technology Newsletter

 

Google for Education Certification

The MSD of Boone Township is committed to providing teachers with professional development opportunities that will benefit student learning. As part of the district's commitment to teacher professional development, teachers have the opportunity to earn a $250.00 stipend (as well as PGPs for license renewal) by becoming a Google for Education (GfE) Level 2 certified educator. The process for becoming a GfE Level 2 educator requires teachers to pass two exams; the GfE Level 1 exam and the GfE Level 2 exam. According to the Google for Education website, the Level 1 skills provide teachers with "lessons and a progressive set of tips designed to help educators make the most of Google’s classroom technology," while the Level 2 skills allow teachers to "move beyond fundamentals with advanced lessons and cutting-edge strategies for integrating Google in [their] classroom."

In an effort to assist teachers in this process, the Instructional Technology Coach has provided online course work on Google Classroom for both the Level 1 and Level 2 courses and the district has purchased vouchers to cover the costs of the exams. The first iterations of these courses were offered as synchronous online courses, meaning that content was uploaded according to a schedule and participating teachers were typically completing work according to that schedule. Now that both courses are complete, these two courses are now available on Google Classroom as asynchronous online courses. Teachers are now free to complete the courses as quickly (or slowly) as they please. If you are a teacher in the MSD of Boone Township and would like to participate in GfE certification course, please contact the Instructional Technology Coach for more information.

Lastly, but certainly not least, I am happy to report that in 2022, nine MSD of Boone Township teachers successfully passed the GfE Level 1 exam and are on their way to becoming GfE Level 2 educators...and receiving additional PGPs...and receiving the $250.00 stipend.

Low Key PD

In other news, the Instructional Technology Coach will be working on a new initiative this spring called "Low Key PD." The purpose of Low Key PD is to provide teachers with short, (nearly) on-demand tutorials on the skills that they want to learn. There is already an extensive collection of tutorial videos on the Hebron Instructional Technology YouTube channel. Or you can go to YouTube and search "low key pd." The videos are in the neighborhood of five minutes; some are longer, many are shorter. Teacher time is valuable and often the skills they want to learn are very specific. Teachers can also make requests at the Low Key PD website.

Using the Share to Classroom Chrome Extension

Part 1: Sharing a typical website.

Part 2: Sharing a document in Google Drive.

***If you are at all familiar with Google Drive and Google Classroom, you know that using the Share to Classroom extension to share a document from your google drive is not the most efficient way to do that. In fact, to use the Share to Classroom extension to do that is not just more complicated than using Classroom, it's much more complicated. So no, I'm not posting a tutorial on how to do that.

Gee! Sweet!

Earlier this month Google made a rather significant change to its Google Apps for Education collection of apps. Google Apps for Education has been renamed (rebranded?) as G Suite for Education (GSFE).

But the change isn't only in the name. The change also means that the current collection of apps associated with GSFE will be updated with "new intelligent features that make work easier and bring teachers and students together", according to the announcement.

These changes include the addition of an "Explore" feature in both Sheets, Docs, and Slides. In Sheets, teachers and students can use the new feature to quickly visualize data to make judgments on how to proceed. In Docs, teachers and students can the new feature to find related topics, images, content, and Drive files that may provide additional information on the subject of the document. In Slides, the new feature can suggest slide formatting options to make formatting the presentation go quicker so teachers and students can spend more time on adding rich content.

You can read more about these updates on the official blog post and the Google for Education site.

Four More Reasons to Love Google Forms

When I assign problems from the textbook, I love being able to create a Google Form that the students can use to check their answers as they work. I create the form, add a few directions on how to enter their responses, fill in the form myself, and then (reason 1) I enable the Flubaroo Add-On to automatically grade student responses against my own.

This workflow has several benefits; 1) the students get their graded responses by email within seconds, 2) the email can be used as documentation to show they did the assignment, 3) the students can go back and fix the questions they got wrong, 4) and there is no limit to the number of times the student can submit their solutions.

But all of this is dependent on one tiny little thing. When I create the form I have to set it up to collect the username of the student submitting their answers. That isn't done automatically. Otherwise Flubaroo has nowhere to send the emails.

Today I posted an answer check form where I forgot to collect usernames. Whoops! Students were submitting their responses and not getting them back. And did I ever hear about it. To fix the problem I went back into the form and changed it so that it would collect usernames. Then I changed the response destination to a new spreadsheet so that the username field would get filled with each submission. I copy and paste the old data into the new sheet and we're all good to go.

When I did that, I opened the new sheet and, much to my surprise, (reason 2) the old data was automatically imported into the new sheet. I didn't have to copy and paste any data. That made me happy.

In addition to that, I checked the old sheet and saw that (reason 3) the username column was appended at the end of the columns. This apparently happened automatically when I changed that setting. So I didn't need to create a new sheet at all.

And the most amazing thing about this, there were students who had the form open as I was updating it, and when they submitted the form, it used the new settings and their data went into the new sheet even though they never refreshed the page. (reason 4) The updates I made took affect in real time.

I Screen, You Screen, We All Screen For Screen Captures

One of the most useful tools in any classroom is a screen capturing app. Screen capturing apps allow you to capture an image of whatever is on your screen at the time. Sometimes you want a full screen image. Sometimes you want to capture only a specific region of the screen. Other times you may want to make a video of what is happening on your screen. TechSmith SnagIt is a great tool for both Mac and PC that can easily capture whatever you need from your screen. Educators can purchase SnagIt at discounted rate. So if you want the full version for your laptop, contact your administrator as soon as possible.

The SnagIt Chrome extension is also a great tool for students to use on their chromebooks. At least it was until TechSmith discontinued it. As of late August it would no longer be receiving updates and would not be available in the Chrome Web Store. The announcement set off quite a tizzy on Twitter. But TechSmith could not be persuaded to keep SnagIt going.

Fortunately, there are other screen capturing apps and extensions available for Chromebooks; Awesome Screenshot, Clipular, Nimbus, Screencastify, and CaptureCast just to name a few.

Google Sites For More Eyes

Google unleashed a massive update to its Sites app user interface this summer, making website creation a breeze.

The old Sites allowed for the creation of more technically capable sites, but you had to know what you were doing to take advantage of them.

The new Sites is designed with the user in mind, making website design and creation a snap. Teachers and students can quickly create informative and visually appealing web sites without little to no technical background knowledge.