AI-pril 2024 - Instructional Technology Newsletter

Diving Into Google Gemini

Teachers in the MSD of Boone Township now have access to Google's AI engine, Gemini. Don't worry, I asked Julia to make sure it was off for students. But the advantages that Artificial Intelligence can offer teachers are as diverse as the teachers and the content they teach. There are a number of ways that most teachers could use Gemini to make their jobs easier. And some teachers may be more comfortable using Gemini than other teachers. But what teachers can use it for is really a question of what they can imagine. Consider the following prompts that I input into Gemini, all of which produced usable and school-appropriate results.

"Write a song in the style of the Beatles about World War 2."

"How might The Great Gatsby be different if it was written today?"

"Summarize the key components of 20th century art."

"What are the most cutting edge developments in biology?"

"What are practical applications of factoring polynomials?"

Here are some less specific, but more universal ways teachers can utilize Gemini:
Lesson Planning & Differentiation: Struggling to brainstorm lesson ideas? Use
Gemini to generate activities, discussion prompts, or even rubrics based on learning objectives. Going a step further, you can use Gemini to modify these resources for different learning styles or student needs.

Creative Inspiration: Need a spark for a writing assignment? Gemini can whip up creative writing prompts, story starters, or even character profiles to get students' imaginations flowing.

Content Summarization & Comprehension: Found a great article but worried it's too long for students? Use Gemini to summarize the key points. This can be helpful for creating differentiated reading materials or supporting struggling readers.

Language Learning Aid: For language classes, Gemini can help students with pronunciation by analyzing recordings and offering corrections.

Integration with Google Tools: Since we have access to Google tools, take advantage of Gemini's seamless integration with Docs and Sheets. This allows teachers to easily incorporate generated content into their existing lesson plans.

Start Small & Focus on Benefits: Gemini can save you time and address specific challenges you face in your classroom.

Ongoing Support: If you're looking for more help, you can even ask Gemini how it can help you. And if you're struggling to come up with prompts that get you what you're looking for, try some of the resources below.

By using Gemini creatively and strategically, you can empower yourself in your own classroom!

A Complete Guide to Google Gemini

I have a complete guide for how to use Google Gemini available on the Hebron Instructional Technology YouTube channel. There are a total of 17 videos split over 3 playlists (or one big playlist, if that's your thing).

AI For Teachers Course

If you are interested in improving your AI game, you can complete the Generative AI Course for Educators to earn a certificate.

AI For Teachers Resources

In addition to the Google Gemini course, here are some other valuable resources for leveling up your Gemini game:

• Prompting Guide 101
• Gemini Responsibility Checklist
• How to Write a Prompt
• Prompt Library (for Educators)

March 2024 - Instructional Technology Newsletter

South Shore Summer of Learning

It's getting to be that time of year again. On June 6 and 7, 2024, the Indiana Department of Education Digital Learning Team, in partnership with Duneland School Corporation will be hosting the South Shore Summer of Learning event at Chesterton High School.

South Shore Summer of Learning

The event will highlight keynote speakers Thomas C. Murray and Kim Strobel, as well as several other high profile speakers.

There are two ways that you can experience the South Shore Summer of Learning event; you can sign up as an attendee (and earn PGPs for license renewal). Or, if you are feeling daring, you can sign up to present on a topic that interests you (and earn PGPs for license renewal).

Summer of Learning events are a great place to hear from experienced educators and engage with new ideas about the art of educating students.

Google Updates of Note

Google Slides recently added the Speaker Spotlight to the Insert menu. The Speaker Spotlight allows you to insert a live camera image of yourself as you present your slide deck. There were a couple of features for Speaker Spotlight that I found rather interesting. First, when you insert the spotlight, you can choose which shape you want your image to appear in; square, circle, square with rounded corners, etc. Second, when you insert the speaker spotlight, it is only inserted on the current slide. This is so that you are not forced to have it on every slide just by inserting it once. It is inserted on the current slide and that's it. Third, one of the options is to have it inserted on every slide. That way, if you do want it to appear throughout your presentation you can still do that. You can see this feature in action here.

Google is continually updating their tools and apps, so new features can pop up at any time. Here are a few new features that became available since the beginning of February:

• Create shareable video presentations in Google Slides
• Latest improvement for page setup in Google Docs
• Easily drag and drop an image to replace the background in Google Slides
• Playback improvements to videos uploaded on Google Drive

Grants

The MSD of Boone Township has recently partnered with Monthly Education Grants Alert (MEGA) Magazine to give us access to a monthly publication of education related grant opportunities. The publication is filled with grant opportunities; some with specific deadlines and others with rolling deadlines. The publication is searchable using the keyboard shortcut ctrl+f (find), so you can search through the document looking for specific keywords instead of reading through every description. When you find a grant that makes sense, there will be a link to the grant's website where you can find more information about applying.

Low Key PD

I recently finished the set of tutorials for Google Slides. That complete collection of tutorials, as well as all of my other tutorials, can be found on YouTube.

Winter 2023 - 2024 Instructional Technology Newsletter All-In-One

What's Noo From Google?

While we were all away from school over the winter break, Google was busy at work releasing a bunch of new features for their suite of products. One new feature in Google Docs specifically is the ability to create pageless documents. A pageless document is a document which is not confined to the normal restrictions one might expect for a document which is intended to be read in print. That is because pageless documents are designed to be used for documents you do not intend to print. Don't worry, though, a pageless document can easily be changed back into a paged document. But oftentimes we create documents which we expect to be consumed on a screen. If that is the case, there is not much need for things like page breaks and margins. You can see an example of a pageless document here.

Another new feature that has been available for a little while already is Smart Chips. Smart Chips can be inserted into a Google Doc and add a tremendous amount of interactivity to the document. Again, think about documents you believe would be consumed on a screen. You can add chips for dates, contacts, files, map locations, and more. You can see an example of smart chips here.

And you may also have noticed "Building Block" elements in Google Docs recently as well. Building block elements build on the idea of having templates available for when you make a large number of documents all with the same (or similar) structure. The old workflow would require you to create a template and save it to the template library for reuse later. Or, less conveniently, repeatedly make a new copy of the template when you need one. Building blocks do essentially the same thing but the workflow involved is much faster. You can see an example of Building Blocks here. And if you are feeling adventurous, you can make your own custom building blocks and save them to your personal building block library.

Low Key PD

New Low Key PD tutorials continue to be added to the already extensive YouTube collection. So far the collection includes tutorials for Slides, Drawings, Jamboard, Forms, and Docs. Tutorials are typically short (1 - 2 minutes) and cover one basic feature at a time. They are also grouped into playlists by the specific app to make it easier to learn a lot about one Google App in a short time.

Vouchers

Since vouchers for taking the Google Certified Educator Level 1 and Level 2 exams must be ordered in bulk, this presents a challenge when only a few teachers are ready to certify. Because of this, there is a new process for paying for the Level 1 and / or Level 2 certification exams. From now on, teachers should pay for the test out of pocket and then follow the following steps in order to get reimbursed for the cost:

1. To file for a reimbursement, complete the claim voucher and attach the invoice.  The office should have the claim form.
2. They would then send that to Karen for processing.  The board meets the 2nd Tuesday of the month.  Once the claim is approved the check will be sent to the teacher.

L1 and L2

Congratulations to our newest Level 2 Google Certified Educator, Abby Kaeb!

Speaking of the Levels 1/2 Google Certified Educators, the Google Classrooms for these courses are available to anyone who would like to pursue them. If you would like to level up your Google skills by obtaining a GCE badge (and the $250.00 stipend that goes with it) please let me know so I can add you to the appropriate course.

March 2023 - Instructional Technology Newsletter

 

Congratulations Are In Order

First things first! Congratulations to MSD of Boone Township Spanish teacher Melissa Summerville for successfully passing the Google for Education Level 2 Exam. Melissa has earned 15 Professional Growth Points (PGPs) to use toward licence renewal and a $250 stipend from the district. 

All MSD of Boone Township teachers are eligible to earn the $250 stipend, which also includes 30 PGPs, by passing the both the Google for Education Level 1 and Level 2 exams.

Low Key PD Update

Low Key PD now has tutorials available for Google Docs, Google Forms, and Google Jamboard. The complete set of tutorials for Google Drawings will be available later in April, but you can catch a sneak-peek here. 

Low Key PD is designed to provide easy to follow, video-based tutorials on the tools that you use everyday. Some videos are more detailed and last a bit longer, but most of the tutorials can be viewed in a passing period. You can find all of the Low Key PD videos on the Instructional Technology Coaching YouTube channel.

Google Has Been Busy

Ed Tech guru Eric Curts has posted a blog entry about all of the new updates Google has been working on that affect the Google tools you use everyday. As an added bonus, Eric has a terrific video explaining the Screencast App available to you on your chromebook.

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.

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.

Google Finally Seeing the Big Picture: Adds Images to Forms Questions

Google recently added several new updates to its Forms app. You read about the new Quiz feature in a previous post on The EdTech Bacon. They also added the ability to use images in most question types including as question options for multiple choice and checkbox questions.

When creating a form, hover just to the right of the question title and a little icon for inserting an image should appear.

When creating a multiple choice or checkbox question, hover just to the right of each answer choice and the same icon should appear, allowing you to include an image for some or all of the question’s choices.

Survey Says: Updates to Google Forms Make the Grade...ing Easier

Recent updates to Google Forms allow teachers to have multiple choice, dropdown, and checkbox questions automatically graded when students submit. With Forms’ new Quiz feature, teachers can give quizzes directly from Google Forms, have it graded, and collect valuable assessment data automatically.

Google's Cast for EDU Projected to Be Big Hit

Over the summer Google made changes to its Google Cast services that now allow students to project their screens to classroom projectors. In order to work, teachers must first install the Google Cast for EDU app on their laptop.

Once installed, the laptop must be given a name. Once named, students can request to cast to the teacher’s laptop, which would then display on the screen from the projector. Several teachers have already put Cast for EDU to work in their classroom.

Updates to Google Classroom Are the Hot Topic

Almost as if they planned it that way, Google Classroom has received a number of new updates and features just in time for the new school year. Perhaps the most notable feature is the addition of topics. Assignments, announcements, and questions can now be tagged with a topic. Those topics can then be used to filter posts in the Classroom stream, making it easier to sift through your classroom posts.

Parents and guardians may now be subscribed to receive weekly email summaries for their student’s progress in Google Classroom. You can add multiple guardian email addresses in the Students tab.

The classroom code has also been moved to the Students tab. This allows the topic filter box to take a prominent place on the Stream tab.