Google Apps for Education

This past weekend I spent two days at Charlottesville High School immersed in a Google Apps for Education (GAFE) Summit.  While we are not yet ready to adopt GAFE, I did learn some useful information, particularly surrounding the Chrome browser.

I’ve used Google Docs for years, even before it was Google Docs and was known as Writely.  With Google Docs, now Google Drive, there is really no need for Microsoft Office – as long as you have Internet access.  You can create documents, spreadsheets and presentations, along with drawings and forms that have many uses.  Any of these can be downloaded in Microsoft format.  The best thing, though, is they are automatically saved to your Google Drive account which you can access from any device with Internet access –smartphones, tablets and computers.  These documents can easily be shared with others – fellow teachers can collaborate or simply have a copy.  In GAFE schools the teacher can share a template or other document with their students who then make their own copy and share back with the teacher.  The teacher can then follow progress on the document, even leaving comments for students just as with a paper document.  No need to print anything unless there is a need.

I spent many sessions at the summit learning more about Chrome, one of the fastest browsers.  While I have long been an advocate for Google Apps for Education I was really thinking simply in terms of Docs/Drive, calendar, maps, etc.  I wasn’t thinking along the lines of apps for the Chrome browser.  If you have a Google account and log into Chrome and then switch devices, your Chrome “experience” is the same.  For instance, I tend to use one laptop at school and another at home – I can add apps and extensions to either laptop and they automatically appear when I open the browser on the other laptop.  With the dictionary extension double click on any word on a web page and you will get the definition along with an icon to click to hear the word.  There are plenty of apps, many of which are free and most of which automatically direct you to a webpage.  There are apps for Quizlet, StudyStack and many other flashcard generators.  Want typing practice?  There’s an app for that!  More than one, actually.  There are math game pages, mostly geared towards math facts for elementary students.  Higher level math courses can make use of graphing calculators and equation editors.  Those teachers might also want to look into Geogebra and Sketchometry.  Biodigital Human offers the human body, male or female, in 3D layers.  You turn on/off the skeleton and numerous other systems of the body – lymphatic, muscular, nervous, reproductive, endocrine, digestive, etc.  There are apps and extensions for home, school and business.

While our students don’t have Google accounts, these apps can come in very handy in the classroom as long as you have an account.  Most teachers now have an interactive whiteboard (IWB) of some type, simply display the app and let students interact with it on the IWB.  If you don’t have a Google account (you don’t have to create a Gmail account, you can use your ACPS email account), you will need to create it at home.  Once you have it created you will be able to sign in and use it in the school system.

 

Voice Translation Apps

A teacher told me the other day how she uses her phone in conferences with Spanish speaking parents.  The parents speak into the smart phone and an app translates things into English.   The teacher speaks into the  phone and the app translates it into Spanish for the parents.  What a great idea.  Think how great that would be for the school secretary.  I don't even have texting on my phone, it is NOT too smart (although smarter than I ever dreamed a phone would be when I was a kid) so I'm not the best one to write this review...we're going to handle this one differently.

I went back to my work area and installed three different free voice translators on my iPad.  I found that the one from Google wouldn't work with our proxy.  One called "Translator with Speech (Free)" didn't really have speech unless you paid $0.99.  A third, called "Translate Voice Free" seems to work great, but you only get about 10 translations per day without pauing $0.99.  --which isn't too much of an obstacle. 

If you have a Smart Phone which works off a satellite rather than the school's network, I'd suggest trying the Google one first, it includes Creole and I'm told it is really good. 

If you use a translator app, would you do us a favor?  Leave a comment below telling which app you use and what its advantages and disadvantages are. 

Class DoJo

I just looked it up and "DoJo" refers to a martial arts training place. What that has to do with this website--ClassDoJo.com, I'm not sure. I gather the reference is to teaching in a disciplined environment, which is the goal of ClassDoJo. DoJo is a classroom management tool which is free, easy to use, might work well with your current style, or might transform your class (as seems to have been the case in a number of the testimonials given at the DoJo site).

 

Speaking of testimonials, here is what Matt Gillis, the music teacher CES/CHS has to say about Class DoJo:

As a teacher who grades based on participation, I find Class Dojo a very handy tool to make quick assessments. Since it's customizable, I can change behavior assessments to something more appropriate for my class. I just leave the page open and make note of what I see without losing valuable teaching time.

 We all want to monitor student behavior, the trouble is documentation. I know who misbehaves and who is an exemplary student, however, actually tracking and documenting student behavior can be so much of a bother that it tends to be overlooked. Class DoJo can simplify this task. I've seen many a teacher use the chalk board to put slashes by student names to note positive or negative behaviors. DoJo is an online program designed to advance that practice into the technological age. Each student has an avatar (you know, a little symbol) with their name on it. If these are projected on a SMART Board, one simply has to click on the student’s avatar and a window pops up with a list of positive and negative behaviors, i.e. "talking out of turn", which can be clicked on and recorded. The settings can be adjusted so that the avatars display 1) only the student's name, 2) the name and the total of both the positive and negative points, or 3) a cumulative total of the positive and negative points added together.

 

At the end of the class period the teacher simply closes the class and the site keeps track of all of the points accumulated for each student that day. DoJo can be set to automatically send out emails to parents each week with a graphically appealing report on each individual student.

 

Whoever designed this program really put some thought into making it as simple as possible to use. For example you don't have to wait for a verification email once you sign up for an account. You don't have to enter each parent's email address (the parents go to Class DoJo and enter the code you give them, then their email address is automatically registered). You don't have to send out emails to the parent, the program does it automatically. You don't have to spend a lot of time learning the program, I simply experimented with it for a few minutes, but you can view a two minute tutorial to learn it as well.

 

There are some features of this program that the students might actually like. Students can go to the site, type in a code, and view graphical report on their behavior - it helps them to specifically see what their strengths are and where they can improve.   When they sign up, students can design their own avatar. One middle school teacher described how one class wanted to see the class report on one of her other classes, when she showed it to them she had an epiphany. She challenged her classes to have a DoJo war with her other classes, classes earned rewards for being the best class in specific areas. Her students seem to have responded with enthusiasm and they were somewhat excited about tracking their own improvement.

 

One reviewer seems to be appalled by the idea of using the projector to display student totals. However, he still recommends the program. He recommends it just because it does such a good job of streamlining the tracking of student behavior for the teacher's records. To read his review click here.

 

Before closing, let me note that there are both Apple and Android apps for DoJo which allow you to track behavior from your mobile device.  Finally, to get a better idea of how DoJo looks, her is the video which can beused to introduce it to students