I get asked about what basic tech skills teachers should have. I think that if everyone could pass the Level 1 Google Educator Certification that would be a good place to start. This week's tip is about becoming a certified Google Educator. I am curious how many of you are Level 1 Certified?

You can find out all the information here

Here is a video for you as well.

Would there be any interest in putting together a cohort of teachers to work through this certification together? If you are interested, please put that in the comments below this post. I can also speak to the powers that be and see if getting certified could have some professional development credit in CVSU.

It really looks and feels like the middle of February! Today's tip is about 2 extensions called Tab Scissors and Tab Glue. Share them with your students.

These are the two images that will show up on your toolbar once you have enabled the extensions.

This simple tab organization tool divides one window into two.

If you have at least two tabs in the selected Chrome window, it will split that window into two smaller side-by-side windows. All the tabs on the left side of the selected tab will stay in the left window, and the rest will move to the window on the right. 

It is especially helpful for those who have lots of tabs opened at a time.

This extension works great with Tab Glue (http://bit.ly/WjGnm7), which will glue all those pesky Chrome windows back together.

Version 1.2 Update: You can now also perform a glue or cut using a shortcut specified on the chrome extensions page. Default is Alt+S to cut, Alt+G to glue, Alt+A to glue all (including minimized windows)

I need your help!

Today I want to bring your attention to a tool we should all know about and ensure that our students are aware of. This Chrome extension is called Read&Write. Please make sure they have the extension and are able to use it for text to speech in Google docs and the web.

Read&Write for Chrome is extension that all staff and students have access to. This is a free version that allows for text to speech in Google docs and other webpages. I am strongly encouraging all teachers to check with their students to make sure this is in their toolbar to the right of the URL window. it will be a small purple puzzle piece. Once you click on the extension, a toolbar appears. Select the text you want read outloud and then press the play button. Students will need to make sure their audio is on etc. It should be pretty simple and there is always support available for you and your students. Watch the video below to see how it works.

I am looking into some pricing for the fully functional tool bar for students for the future as well as accessing the 30 day free trial for those students who could benefit for a month of access. I will keep you posted.

Good news if you are a teacher because you can have access to the fully functional tools for free for 1 year! You can also get free access to Eqatio (for writing math stuff!!) for all you math and science teachers.

Here is a link for a video on the fully functional tools 

Follow these links to find out more on how to sign up for the free version.

www.texthelp.com/en-us/company/education-blog/march-2016/read-write-is-still-free-for-teachers/

https://www.texthelp.com/en-us/products/equatio/

As always, please feel free to contact me for more information. Please leave a coment below if you are already using this tool. You never know what I might surprise you with when I come to visit.

thanks,

Brucie

Happy Tuesday!

This week my TTT focuses on some of our own fabulous teachers and students at Williamstown Middle High and Podcasting. Check out this link to 2 student recorded podcast. Big shout out to Steve Perry and Kevin Sullivan for taking the lead on this with their students and going the extra 5% to publish it on their website.

Click here to see the website and listen to podcasts

What is a Podcast: A digital audio file made available on the Internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device.

Adding a podcast to your school website is really easy. Click here for the BlackBoard Help webpage and scroll down a bit to see the video. 

Using WeVideo is a super easy way to have students make podcast. We have a District subscription  - contact me for how to set up your account.

https://www.wevideo.com/blog/news/product-update-export-audio-only-in-wevideo

https://www.wevideo.com/blog/for-schools/video-newsletter-create-podcasts-with-wevideo-may-2019

Website to look at for ideas on using Podcast in the classroom

http://jenniferwolfe.net/2018/07/podcast.html

As always, feel free to reach out to me for classroom help with this! BTW...no one won the $25 Amazon Gift card last week by checking out Flipgrid, so I'll just hold onto to it for now. :)

 Thanks,

Brucie

Wow! I just revisited the Flipgrid website for education and can see what a great tool it has turned into! They have added so many new features.

Do any of you use it? Add a comment to this post and let me know. If you do that, I will enter your name into a raffle for a $25 Amazon Gift card.

Of course I have created my own Grid (Educational Technology) and added a topic - say Hello to Flipgrid. Go ahead and click on the green plus button and add a video. If you do that, I will enter your name into a raffle for a $25 Amazon Gift card.

Click here to add to the Flipgrid               

Just scroll down until you  see the BIG GREEN +(plus sign)

So what is Flipgrid:

Flipgrid is a website that allows teachers to create "grids" to facilitate video discussions. Each grid is like a message board where teachers can pose questions, called "topics," and their students can post video responses that appear in a tiled grid display. Grids can be shared with classes, small groups, or any collection of users interested in a common strand of questions. Each grid can hold an unlimited number of topics and each topic can hold an unlimited number of responses. Topics can be text-based or include a resource such as an image, video, Giphy, emoji, or attachment. Customizable security settings help protect student privacy.

Students can respond via the Flipgrid app or website with any camera-enabled device or by uploading a previously recorded video. Responses can be 15 seconds to five minutes, and a maximum recording time can be set. Teachers can also allow students to record replies to classmates' responses. There are a variety of moderation features teachers can turn on or off per topic. The CoPilot feature allows more than one teacher to be a grid moderator. Teachers have access to a help center and two active teacher communities: Disco Library for sharing grid templates and GridPals for connecting with educators and classrooms around the world.

(taken from Common Sense Media https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/flipgrid)

I have left-side link on my EdTech page dedicated to Flipgrid so go check that out for help with Flip grid.

You can only have 1 Grid in the free account, but you can have lots of topics within that Grid.

Here is a good How-To Video

As always, reach out to me if you want support with using this awesome tool!

Enjoy the weather this week,

Brucie

Have you ever thought about having students create a comic to demonstrate their learning? Here are some resources for you on this topic.

Pixton - I'm sure some of you already use this with your students. It is an very robust creation tool. A lot of it is free, but there are also some paid features. There is good integration with Google and setting up your students is easy.

To get started, go here and sign up https://edu.pixton.com/educators

It will take you a few minutes to build your own avitar and set up your class.

Here is a Blog post from Pixton about using comics in your classroom.  

Here is a global link about using comics in your classroom. This is full list of suggested programs and apps you can use. 

If you are already using Pixton in your classroom (or want to), please leave a brief comment on this blog post. I will pick a randon response and give away a tech treat to that person!

Welocme to 2020! Seems like just yesterday I was worried about what would happen to my Win95 computer when the new year came. Alas, the world didn't come to an end and life went on pretty much as usual (until Sept 2011.) We've come a long way baby in the lasy 20 years and it is ever so exciting!

I suspect many of you know about and use Google Photos to work with your students. It's the easiest way to distribute photos. Email is one way, but using Google Photos is so much easier and efficient.

Here is a good tutorial on using Google Photos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEJH0n6xuJk

Here is a website that has information about Google Photos (there is a podcast to listen to) and lots of other information

https://googleteachertribe.com/google-photos-in-the-classroom-gtt059

Google Help for Photos

https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6220402?hl=en

Today's post is about the power of keeping a classroom Blog for your students, parents, colleagues and the rest of the world. I have been posting weekly since mid-November and I look forward to this every week. You can easily scroll down through my blog and see all the post I have made and it's a good way to keep all of my Tech Tips organized.

There are lost of blogging tools. I am finding that this one (Blackboard) to be really simple to use, yet there is power in these tools to post text, links, images and files for my readers. It is very easy to create a new blog section to one of your pages in your site or to just add a new Blog page to your site. I can get you going in about 10 minutes!

Of course tools like Blogger, Blogspot and EduBlogg are all good too...you just have to make sure that they are easily accessible to your students. Just get blogging!

This weeks Tech Tip Tuesday #4 is about using Wakelet.

Wakelet is the easiest way to capture, organize and share multi-media resources with students, teachers, and learning communities. Anyone out there using this tool?

Here is the Teacher's Guide for Wakelet

Today's TTT#3 is aout using another great Google Tool called Keep. We all keeps list of all kinds of things and Keep let's you do that in a pretty simple way. The best part is that it integrates really well with your email, calendar, docs and slides.

You can find Keep in your Google wafful. It might be on the second page of apps. If not, just go to keep.google.com. There is also a Chrome extension that you can add that allows you to take any webpage and with a click add it to Keep.

Beginning Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W4OMnExzGY

Here are some links to help you get started

https://support.google.com/keep/?hl=en#topic=6262468

Using Keep to help you add comments to student work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgV1ypW6ZL8&t=177s

Keep in the classroom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ_D9tylIDo

https://shakeuplearning.com/blog/25-ways-to-use-google-keep/

I hope you are now able to Keep those lists!

Here's another way to view this list

Cheat Sheet