Classroom or Edmodo

In the past I pushed to get teachers to adopt the use of Edmodo.  However, with the migration to Google accounts I chose not to actively recommend Edmodo this year.  Not only can Google Drive files be shared, they can be edited collaboratively.  In addition, at the end of school year 2014 Google was testing a beta version of a management site dubbed Google Classroom.  (Rather than calling it a classroom management system, or even a content management system, let's just call it a Google Drive management system.)

At the start of the year I figured teachers might feel a bit overwhelmed if I tried to get them to adopt booth Google Mail, Google Drive, Google Docs AND Google Classroom.  As a result, I mentioned Google Classroom to very few teachers.

In spite of all of the above  Emily Martin (AHS) made use of Edmodo this year, and Matt Gillis (CHS/CES) used Google Classroom.  So, I thought I'd ask the two of them to briefly describe their experiences with these sites and give teachers a chance to consider them for next year.

Here are some remarks directly from Emily ....

Generally, I will use Edmodo with my upper-level Spanish classes. I give them a situation, and they have to provide a comment. For example, I provided a question in Spanish from a Spanish advice column. Students had to use a particular verb tense that we were reviewing to provide an answer for that question. Then, we discussed phrases such as “I agree,” “That is a good idea,” “I disagree,” etc., and how to explain why. Then, they had to comment on another students´ comment, similar to a blog. I have also used Edmodo as a tool on which students can save Power Point presentations if they do not have a flash drive, or for peer-editing: Students may share sentences that they have written, and then comment upon grammatical errors in other students´ sentences. Then, I comment about whether or not it is correct.
Immediately my students enjoyed the set-up of Edmodo. It is easy to log into, and the fact that it looks like Facebook makes it attractive to them. They seemed disappointed that it does not have all of the Facebook features like “friending” their classmates, but this was the main complaint. It also seems to motivate them to write in Spanish. I have noticed that they may not write in perfect Spanish on Edmodo, but they try with what they know, and they use Spanish more frequently than they do during a normal lesson. In fact, sometimes I do not even have to remind them to use Spanish – it is almost as if they immediately know that they need to use it on Edmodo, and they love to send funny and sarcastic Spanish messages to one another! I love to read their comments.
Overall, I give Edmodo a very good review, and I would recommend it to any teacher who would like to use it as an interactive slightly conversational tool, especially if you struggle with getting all of your students to participate during oral discussions in the classroom.

and here is what Matt had to say about google classroom:

 I've used Google Classroom with my 7th Grade Chorus class, who did a research project on a favorite pop star. It was very easy to set up an assignment for them and set a due date. Since the 7th graders have Chromebooks and Google accounts, it took very little time to get them set up and working. Once they started working, I could monitor their progress from Google account, and I could give each student personalized feedback. Now that they have turned in their projects, I can give them a grade and return it to them. I distribute the assignment and rubric, they do their research, type their notes, create their slide presentation, and get their grade all without using a single sheet of paper.

I'm in a situation where my classroom gets used by others, and at certain times of the year I have to  hold class in different places throughout the school. The flexibility of being able to work on their projects anywhere without the hassle of walking around to each computer with a flash drive was an absolute God-send. There are other apps that can be integrated with Google Classroom to create a rubric and tally a score on the assignment as well. I haven't yet explored those options, because they seem pretty difficult to work with. I will just stick with Classroom for now.
Although Google Classroom just recently came out of Beta testing, I really like the features it has so far. I look forward to what new features will be added to classroom as time goes on.

The big advantage of google classroom is that it integrates well with Google drive --its'strong point is managing the flow of files. It also allows students to use a single log in  Edmodo, on the other hand, is aimed more at classroom management.  The difference can be seen by looking at some of classroom's limitations. According to Alice Keeler, Classroom will not:

Google Classroom does not handle course enrollments like you would find in an LMS or CMS.  Google Classroom does not have a gradebook.  Google Classroom does not track student participation. While students can comment in Google Classroom, there are not discussion boards.Google Classroom does not integrate quizzing features....Google Classroom does not allow teachers to create content within the system. Instead, teachers link to content they build in other places such as Google Docs.  Google Classroom assignments can not be organized into modules or units.

This is not to say that Alice Keeler doesn't think highly of Classroom, after all, she states,  "Since it is from Google, it integrates with Google Drive in amazing ways." and offers a list of 50 things you can do with classroom. In essence, Classroom allows you to set up an environment to both distribute and collect assignments. She offers an entire collection of posts on the use of Google Classroom.

You might consider adopting one of these two in the fall, however,  before making a decision, I'd recommend that you wait until August or September to do so because Google Classroom is evolving as I write and some of the things listed as limitations above, may have be available this fall.

Collaboration With Google Drive: Part Three

This is the third and final installment in a series of postings drawn from a conference session entitled Collaboration with Google Drive,  by Andrea Jones of Franklin Middle School in Fairfax County. In this post we will move on to the use of templates and contact lists in conjunction with Google Drive

Templates

At some ACPS schools, there is a lesson plan template created in Google Docs.  The lesson plan template serves to illustrate how a teacher might create a “handout” assignment in Google Docs and share it with the class, granting students only the right to “view” the documents.  Students could then “make a copy” which they can edit (fill in the answers) and place that copy in their folder which is shared with the teacher. Again, this process should sound very familiar to those teachers who are filling in Google Docs lesson plan templates. If you are not doing your lesson plans in this manner, it might sound very confusing, but, it isn't really--just try it step by step and see how it works. If you run into difficulties, don't hesitate to contact your friendly, local ITRT or to ask one of the teachers I suggested in last week's post.

Contact Lists

In order to facilitate the sharing of documents, it is handy to have student groups within your contact lists. That is, you can create a group with all your students from a particular class. Then, rather than having to share a file with each individual student's Email address, you can just type something like "second block" and share it with all  twenty-some odd students in second block. (I've had classes where quite a number of the students were odd).

Andrea suggested that the first time you have your class use Google Drive you may want them to fill out a form in which they enter their account address--which would enter them in a column on a spreadsheet. This, in turn, would allow you quickly and easily create a group of contacts by copying and paste-ing the column of addresses as you create a contact group.  There are other ways as well, of creating groups of contacts and it sure makes things a lot easier to share a document with a class full of students. If you’d like help with creating groups in your contacts, let your ITRT know.

illustrations of how to switch to contacts, where to find forms, the spreadsheet--might be included. 

Assorted Notes

Andrea pointed out the different types of files that can be created and shared--documents, spreadsheets, forms (quizzes, surveys), presentations, and drawings.  She mentioned that some tools are only visible when an item on the page is selected--so students shouldn't panic if it at first appears that they can’t do something.  She suggested that “Chrome” is the best browser to use in conjunction with Google Drive.

Next week we'll move on to another topic, see you then.

Collaboration With Google Drive: Part Two

A Happy New Year to you all.
Continuing on with what I learned from a session entitled Collaboration with Google Drive,  by Andrea Jones of Franklin Middle School in Fairfax County. Let's get to the mechanics of Google Drive.

File Management  

First, one can very quickly accumulate an unwieldy number of files in one's drive.  Therefore, organization is critical.  Put some forethought into naming conventions.  That is to say, think about if you want students to turn in work with titles based on assignment number, subject, student name, date, class period, etc.  Next, realize that it is crucial to organize files into folders.  Every folder is going to be “owned” by someone--in this discussion, either the teacher or a student.  The owner houses the  folder on their “My Drive”.  A folder can then be shared with others who might be granted various levels of permission.  Any document placed in that folder by default “inherits” the permissions assigned to that folder.  If a teacher creates a folder and shares it with students, those students might be given the rights to edit or view documents in the folder.    

My false starts experiences suggest that I should have listened to Melissa in the first place and had teachers set up their own folders for lesson plans.  Applying this to the classroom, you might want to have students set up their own folders--so that they own them, and then have the students share the folders with you.  If you do that, you’d have one folder per student in your “shared with me” or "incoming" drive.  I’d suggest you group these as sub-folders by block (or by subject if you are an elementary teacher) and copy them to "my drive" (thanks Ms. Walker for that suggestion.) Students might want several folders--where they keep documents (files or assignments) which they are not ready to “hand in.”   Andrea pointed out that if the student “owns” the folder, the teacher can delete it at the end of the year and the student can keep it to accumulate a portfolio of work done over a number of school years.

File Types

Andrea pointed out the different types of files that can be created and shared--documents, spreadsheets, forms, presentations, and drawings.  She mentioned that some tools are only visible when an item on the page is selected--so students shouldn't panic if it at first appears that they can’t do something.  She suggested that “Chrome” is the best browser to use in conjunction with Google Drive.

Monitoring Tools

Andrea then spent quite a bit of time on the use of “revision history,” “comments,” and “notifications” which can be used as monitoring tools to allow the teacher to evaluate how much was contributed by individual group members.  To go into specifics here would make this entry far too long, but Melissa presented an overview in her post on May 7th (The Ultimate Workflow) and I’d be happy to work with anyone who might want to use these features but feels the need for some support in doing so. Needless to say, once the students realize that the teacher is monitoring who is doing what, the problem of one student doing all the work is greatly alleviated.

Management Tools

Before I conclude, let me mention a few management tools that might be helpful and may also become subjects of future blog posts.  Doctopus is an “add-on” available for Google Sheets (their spreadsheet program) that is designed to manage student group projects.  Doctopus is described as “An octopus for docs!  Teacher-built tool for scaffolding, managing, organizing, and assessing student projects in Google Drive.”  A second "add-on" is Gclassfolders  which “will automatically create and share student folders for a  teacher.”

Finally, since attending the conference, Google has come out with classroom.google.com a classroom management site offering some of the same features as Edmodo.  

Well, this posts seems very lengthy, if you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking with it, I know that, as time passes, more and more of you will be using Google Drive with your students and I hope that this review will both encourage you to do so, and give you some insight into how to best manage that process. Some experienced teachers who would be good resources on the would be Amanda Mitchel, Amanda Hruska, and Kathy Evans (NHS), Melanie Walker (AHS) and Judy Fieth (CHS).
Next week we'll move on to the use of templates and contact lists in Google Drive.

Improving Student Writing with Google Drive

This session from the VA GAFE Summit was presented by Melissa Powell, a 6th grade reading teacher and Katie Plunkett, an ITRT - both from Charlottesville City Schools (CCS). CCS began using Google in October of 2013, so this was still fairly new to the presenters. Students were given basic training, such as how to log in, creating documents and sharing (view, comment, edit rights). After a short period of time it was obvious the students needed more training, such as formatting and how to organize their Drive.
Melissa wanted to move student writing to Google Drive for a number of reasons - get rid of the stacks of paper journals, ease of drafting and rewriting, convenience of commenting; and most of all, to give students a wider audience for their work.
Students were taught  how to give quality feedback and to comment properly. This process was modeled using a fake document. The teachers used a simple technique called TAG:

• Tell something you liked
• Ask a question
• Give a compliment

As both teachers and students became comfortable with the process the projects grew in length and rigor. Some of the projects included:

• Spooky story starters - a way for students to begin collaborative writing (example - notice teacher comments for the students on the right side).
• Personal narratives (example)
• Using Google Draw to create simple layouts to demonstrate text features of non-fiction (example)
• Poetry writing

Looking back over the transition to use of Google Drive the teachers had the following reflections:

• Start at the beginning of the year
• Student writing increased because the students liked using Google Drive
• Composition and expression improved
• Mechanics are improving more slowly
• Drive allows for more efficient, quality feedback and comments
• The need for more structure in the form of checklists and notes sheets (hard copies)
• No carrying notebooks and papers home to grade
• The need for more front end organization - organizing teachers' Drives to handle all the student work being shared - set up folders, color code, mini-lessons to show the students computer skills needed.
• Use Google Sites to create student portfolios

The Ultimate Workflow

As most readers have gathered by now, Larry and I went to the Virginia Google Apps for Education Summit in Charlotttesville, VA in early March. Larry has been posting about some of the things he picked up and now it is my turn.
The first session I attended was The Ultimate Workflow presented by Ken Shelton, a Google Certified teacher and Apple Distinguished Educator from Los Angeles. The topic was using Google Docs to maximize productivity and he was full of tips and tricks. When we migrate to use of GAFE in the 2014-15 school year, these will come in handy! Remember, workflow = productivity.

• Color code your folders within your Drive to visually identify the content of the folder. Documents are automatically created in whatever folder you have open.
• Name your documents immediately!! (There is no "File - Save" option in Google as documents are automaticaly saved every 3-7 seconds depending on your network integrity.)
• When using Drive with your students have a naming convention and use it. "Section First Last Project" (or something similar) - such as "2 John Doe Recycling Project". The individual pieces of the name are searchable within your drive.
• Right click on any word in a document and select define for definition or research to automatically search Google for information The research pane allows you to preview the web page, insert a link and also cite the page without leaving the document. Can use arrow at top of research pane to change the style of citation between MLA, APA and Chicago. Can also use that arrow to change the license filter. Can toggle between definition and research pane. If you highlight footnote number along with anything you want to move it will automatically renumber footnotes. Under the research pane you can change the source of searching from everything (web), images, scholar, quotes, dictionary, personal, tables.
• Use of the comment feature in Docs allows for timely, meaningful feedback. They are dated and time stamped. Comments will automatically disappear when marked by a user as resolved - you can elect to receive an email when this occurs so you know when your students have resolved an issue.
• Notifications - set at “all” so you have a record of everything that went on in the document.
• Share documents from folders so anything in the folder defaults to the parent permission of the folder. You must manually change a document in the folder you do not want shared (or put it in a different folder.
• You can use Revision History to see who is doing the work in a collaborative document. The revision history shows who did what, such as deleting crucial parts of document. Once in revision history pane you can see detailed revisions.
• In your Drive, going back to “Recent” and “List view” shows the items that have been modified most recently - can see if a student is not working and should be.  Naming protocols are very useful here.
• When sharing documents keep in mind the various permission levels. "Can view" allows users to view the document but make no changes or comments. "Can comment" allows users to comment on the document. This is useful for peer review as well as teacher grading. "Can edit" gives users complete rights to make changes to the document, as well as comment. Students need to be very familiar with these levels.

Re-Charging Classroom Instruction with YouTube Edu and Google Apps

This session was presented by Kim Randall who makes her living doing these types of workshops around the world.  However, while sitting through the session, I thought she was a classroom teacher, because all that she suggested seemed very practical, do-able, and valuable.  Here I'll recap of some of the strategies she suggested and I'll provide you the list of resource links she accompanied them with.  Although you won't be able to use these strategies quite the way she anticipates (because our students won't have Google accounts until next year) with some modifications they could be used this year.

Strategy One- Vocabulary Development - this strategy could be used when teaching or introducing a wide variety of material.  Kim turned the session into a classroom and the session participants into engaged learners.  She first showed us a video on the City of London, a city of 11,000 people which is surrounded by London, a city of 7,000,000 people.  She paused the four minute video repeatedly to allow us to write down seven to ten key words or phrases.  Then she had us put ourselves into groups in which we agreed on a group list of 7-10 key words or phrases, which a group recorder typed these into a Google form.  From the form the terms went into a Google drive spread sheet from which she copied and pasted into Wordle to create a word cloud.

Strategies Two and Three - Using Google Draw Graphic Organizers - If you have a Google account, perhaps you are familiar with Google Drive.  For those of you who aren't familiar with Google Drive, let me give you a brief introduction, as NEXT YEAR you will have an ACPS Google account.  Google Drive is similar to DropBox in that it provides cloud (online) storage.  Additionally, there is an online word processor, presentation creator, spreadsheet, etc.  Each of these applications can be used collaboratively--two or more people can edit the document simultaneously.

Among these applications is "Google Draw"--which I had previously disregarded as not all that relevant to the high school classroom.  Well, I was wrong.  Kim Randall had us take what we had learned and collaboratively enter it into a couple of different graphic organizers.  I believe she made these herself, but there are a number of templates available for Venn diagrams and that sort of thing.
.
Strategie Four - Three Facts and a Fib. Another activity session participants engaged in was to read through four statements and try to identify the fib.  These predictions were entered into a Google form so that the "class" could immediately see how many class members chose each of the four statements.  We then watched a YouTube EDU video on sea turtles to find out if we were correct.  This seems to be a very useful way of getting students to pay close attention to educational videos.  Of course there are many variations of this activity--for example having students watch a video and then create their own list of three facts and a fib.

Strategy Five - Half  the Story.  With this one, the teacher takes an image and simply crops out half of it. The students then speculate on what the missing part of the image shows.

Strategy Six - Caption It - Show the students an image and have them create a caption for it, thus encouraging them to study and analyze the image.  As a former social studies teacher I can see a lot of applications for this,.

Here is the list of resources Ms. Randall provided for use with these strategies--or some strategy of your own.

• www.youtube.com/education
• www.youtube.com/teachers
• www.youtube.com/schools
• http://www.google.com/edu/
• www.google.com/drive
• www.wordle.net
• www.google.com/images
• www.flickr.com      
• www.pics4learning.com

Padlet--Simple and Flexible

Padlet is a handy tool that everyone ought to be able to use during the coming school year.  I can easily see some teachers using it every day.  To put it simply, Padlet is on online refrigerator door.  A teacher can place a “sticky note” to the web page (door) and have students respond by adding notes.  Much more complicated tasks can also be done of course, but, let’s talk about some of the more obvious and simple ones first.

Getting started is very easy.  You actually don’t even need an account, you can just go to “build a wall.”  Once there, double click and type something.  If students go to the same web address they can add notes of their own.  (I’d put the url as a link in a portaportal—to make it easy for the students—see you friendly, local ITRT about this)  I envision the teacher displaying this page on their screen, students adding notes, the teacher reloading the site and there you have it, a more engaging class because you’ve made the assignment interactive.

Here are some ideas for using Padlet.

1. Brainstorming / Ice Breaker activities.  You post a question, students give a brief response, the class views them—if you are using laptops with cameras built in, students could post pictures of themselves.  One note, Internet Explorer 7 does not support some features—such as dragging the picture to the wall—it would have to be uploaded instead.  Click here to see a sample ice breaker.
2. Short excersices, in English class students might: a) use the word of the day in a sentence, b) practice tense, c) give an adjective to describe a character in the reading, c) come up with a synonym and an antonym,
3. Writing activities – there is a 160 character limit within which students could write descriptive paragraphs, poems,  essay plans, short stories, etc.  One student could write the first paragraph of a story, and subsequent students could add new notes continuing the story.
4. Posting assignments, notices, etc—students can post questions on the assignments.
5. Post numerous math problems and have different students post their answers to different problems.
6. Notifications – the most obvious 
7. Speaking Activities – for those who don’t like to speak in front of a class.  Students could record a comment on a photo, an opinion on a current issue, etc.
8. Kick off a topic with a KWL chart where students paste notes on what they know and what they want to learn about a topic.

 Now, more complex uses could involve students making individual walls posting multiple pictures and telling about them.  If you have done projects where students have produced online slides shows, videos, posters, etc., you could use Padlet to have them post or link to their best work of  the year.  Of course I could suggest many more possibilities, but to spur your imagination it might even be better for you to look through the gallaryof samples offered by Padlet.

While in the "more complex" category, I should note that there are various privacy options available in Padlet.  You can change the settings so the wall is private, so that it is only viewable, so that viewers can add only posts which you approve, can add post but not change the wall, or have the liberty to change the wall.  In other words you can lock things down and be super secure, or leave it more freewheeling as in a classroom discussion. 

For other sites similar to Padlet click here.
Now might be the time of year to experiment with Padlet and evaluate it as a tool for using next year.

Have a wonderful, relaxing summer and come back all refreshed and ready to teach.