Ten GoogleDocs Add-Ons

I've been exploring some "add-ons" for GoogleDocs.  When editing a GoogleDoc you might have noticed the Tab which says "Add-ons."  If you click on it and from the pull down menu select "get add-ons" a window will open up listing a choice of tools developed by third parties (not by Google) which can be added on to GoogleDocs.  You can also search through these tools via the search box at the top of the window.  Here is a quick report on ten of the "add-ons" which are available there.

Recommended:

1. url shortener - builds goo.gl into  google docs - creates a short link to the doc you are working in or a highlighted link within the document. This add on is easy to use and extremely useful - I'd highly recommend it. For more on goo.gl click here.

2.  Lucidchart - good for adding thinking maps, and charts. You create an account at a Lucidchart site. At this site you produce and store diagrams. Then, when working in GoogleDocs, you click on the LucidChart add-on and a list of the charts you've created appears. From this list you can insert a chart into your document. I found the site to be fairly intuitive and easy to use. I'd recommend this add-on for about any teacher. I'm not sure to what extent mind maps are being pushed on teachers these days, but, be that as it may, they are a valuable teaching tool for anyone who needs to teach concepts.

3. Easy Accents - This is an add on which enables you to use all those foreign accents--ñ, œö, ü, ú, ó, etc. It is super easy to add on and use and I'd certainly recommend it for our Spanish, French and perhaps our ELL teachers. The chief limitation is that it includes only five languages.

4. GradingHelp - This would be a great add on for English teachers--however, after a trial period, it it cost $30 for six months. I'd recommend that you wait until you will be having a lot of papers to grade, and then sign up for the ten day free trial. Here is how it works. You open a student's document in Docs, then you highlight a section of the document you see a problem with and click on GradingHelp, a sidebar opens up from which you choose a category--for example, "punctuation," then a subcategory, and finally, a comment such as “hyphen needed.” GradingHelp creates a comment for you such as "Punctuation - These words work together as a compound adjective; connect them with a hyphen. (h1)" in a comment box which you have opened on the side. In other words, you can quickly add comments which would take you a long time to write out.

Not for Me:

5. MindMeister- The description states that it "lets you turn any bullet point list into a visually appealing mind map." For me, it turned a simple list into a flow chart (which was not appropriate) and left off the last point. Based on that, I wouldn't recommend MindMeister. However, if you have a real need for this sort of thing, you might find that through enough experimentation, you can master it and make it useful to you.

6. Hello Sign - The idea is to make it possible for you to add a signature to a GoogleDocs document.  The problem is that first you need to create a signature to add. I tried this with both a mouse and a touchpad and found that I did not have the patience to create a decent looking signature. Perhaps with a fine stylus it could be done, but, I don't think most people will find it worth the effort.

7. Openclipart - I installed it and tried it and my first impression of it was very favorable. However, then I tried inserting clip art without the add on. I just clicked on "insert" then "image" and found that I could do a Google search which gave me far more images to choose from. Although Openclipart seems to give you additional assurance that you won't inadvertently violate a copyright, however, if you'll go back and read this blog post, I don't think you'll find that a concern anyway (as long as your use is for an educational purpose.)

8. ProWritingAid - "improve your writing. Check your writing for consistency, plagiarism, acronyms, cliches, redundancies, grammar mistakes and more." I conceived of this as useful to an English teacher who wanted to check his student's documents for plagiarism. I was disappointed to find that it is not as free as it first appears, it was unable to detect that I had plagiarized from Wikipedia. Furthermore, in a sentence about the state legislature, it suggested I might want to use the term "tell us" rather than "state." This is not an add on that I'd recommend.

9. Gliffy (diagrams made easy) - This should be very similar to Lucidchart. However, it took me to a site that had it's content missing. I just couldn't get it to work. Perhaps you'll have better luck, if you want to give it a try, here is their website.

10. Thesaurus - With this add-on I've had it work as expected, not work at all, and work but produce no results.  Useful if it works, but, from my experience, I can't recommend it.

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ExamView--A Dream Coming True?

I'd guess that the majority of you are either familiar with ExamView,  or have at least heard of it.  Just in case you haven't--ExamView is a widely used test generator.  When I was in the classroom I used it to create hard copies of tests.  The program is provided by textbook manufacturers and comes with banks of test questions.  "Back in the day" I didn't have to be concerned about any SOLS and used the program to author my own test questions.  ExamView would scramble both the order of the answers and the order of the questions if I so chose.  It generated answer keys for each form it created.  I thought it was wonderful.

When I moved to my current position as an ITRT I attended a "summer camp" for  ITRTs and learned that  ExamView could be administered on-line.  Using it that way the teacher can record the student's grade the instant they complete the test.  When the fellow who had been hired to replace me quit and I briefly returned to the classroom, I tried it out and was thrilled with the results.  I was able to give kids practice tests which they could take multiple times--noting which questions they missed and even reading teacher created comments on the answer choices (a feature I confess, I did not use).  When the time came for the real test,  I'd have the answer results before the kids walked back to the classroom from the computer lab.

Upon returning to my position as ITRT I enthusiastically pitched the idea of putting ExamView on the county server so that ACPS teachers of particular courses could pool teacher created test questions and tests.  Let's just say that not everyone bought into my vision, we might wind up sharing questions that didn't correspond with the SOLs after all.  For years my dream languished.  Now it is finally coming half true.

What IS happening is that ExamView is getting some on-line use.  However, the idea of teachers pooling test questions still isn't happening.  What I've found is that I was in a small  minority when I wrote my own questions--my colleges seem to be happy with the questions supplied by the publisher--there are not teacher created questions to pool.

Let's get back to the part of the dream that has come true.  In order for ExamView to get any use, a few things had to happen.  One, I needed to find teachers willing to try it.  Two, the program had to  be housed on our network servers somewhere, Three, ExamView icons needed to be pushed out to the desktops of student use computers.   During the past couple of years all of these things have been coming together.

In fact, ExamView is getting enough use at Arcadia High School that the Icon has been added to all student log-ins.  This means that students can take ExamView tests from the library computers, from computers in the labs,  from computers off the carts, and from classroom desktops (for makeup tests).  I believe we have business teachers, vocational teachers, a math teacher, and a  social studies teacher at AHS all using ExamView.  NHS and CHS also have teachers who use it.  At NHS most of the use is by teachers in computer labs, however, there is at least one laptop cart on which  the icon appears.

All this to say, if you have a  textbook which uses ExamView as it's test generator, and you'd like to start using the on-line version, let me know and I'll  arrange it.