For All Rubrics: Create and Grade Rubrics on your iPad or Computer for Free

With For All Rubrics teachers can easily and quickly create online rubrics.  Unlike most other online rubric creators, you can directly assess students with this online tool.  Just click on the section of the rubric to record a grade, you can even add comments to the rubric overall, or just certain sections. For All Rubrics even works on your iPad adding a little more mobility to your assessments.

You can create accounts for students so they can go in and check on their rubric or email students their completed rubrics. You can even print a completed rubric if you need to have a physical copy.

Rubrics can be created from scratch, or you can select for many shared rubrics, and common core score sheets, as well as a selection of rubrics from the Buck Institute if you are doing Project Based Learning.  Teachers can share their rubrics, so there is also a large selection of rubrics that others have created. If you create a great rubric, you can choose to share it with others as well.

For All Rubrics can also provide great data about how individual students are doing or how a class is doing.  Reports can be generated by rubric, by student, and by class. This is a great way to track performance over time.

The short guide below should get you started using this handy online app.

The first step is to create a free teacher account and set up classes. You then need to add students to your classes. You can import a .csv or manually add your students.

The next step is to create a rubric from scratch or select your rubric from a template that you find in the "Libarary" tab.  Below is a presentation rubric that I selected from the Buck Institute and a rubric I created in my "Design" tab. I changed the name of the one from the Buck Institute to be for an assignment called "My Favorite Rescue".  Once I have rubrics in my design center I can copy and rename any that I use frequently. For example if I have a standard essay rubric I can just duplicate and change the name of it for each essay students are assigned.

Now we can assess students. Simply click on the "plus" next to a students name after selecting the rubric you would like to use from the menu. You will then see your rubric. All you need to do is click on the appropriate section to record a score. You can even leave comments for the assignment overall, or just particular sections.

You can now email students their results, print them out, or simply have the students log on to their accounts to check how they did.

BaiBoard - Free whiteboard collaboration across devices

Collaboration is key, and BaiBoard is a great FREE tool for student/teacher collaboration. With BaiBoard you an draw on a Mac or iPad and see, in near real time, the drawing appear across all devices. What I really like about BaiBoard is that you don't need to create an account in order to use it. 

To create a new BaiBoard you just open the App on your Mac or iPad. You will see all the BaiBoards that you have created along with all the "meets" that you are currently in.   You can then create a new Board or join a current meet (what they call shared Boards). Boards can be password protected, which is a nice feature since nearby boards show by default.

The editor includes plenty of tools including drawing, texts, shapes, and a grid for graphing.  You can even add PDFs to annotate together. Collaborating on PDFs is a little less than intuitive. Once you attach a PDF to a board you and other collaborators will need to independently open the PDF before you can annotate it.

I have not found a limit to the number of users that can be connected to a Board (maximum attempted has been 6). The number of shared PDF annotators appears to be limited to 4.

I can see lots of uses for Baiboard in the classroom. From working on math problems collaboratively to completing graphic organizers in partners. Baiboard can also be used for collaborative brainstorming and mind-mapping.

To make Baiboard even better, it's super easy to export a board or an annotated PDF.  Baiboard includes direct connections to Dropbox and Google Drive accounts. Students can also e-mail Baiboards. You can also use the Open-in function to export the Board to any app that works with PDFs. 

PowToon 4 Edu: Fun Animated Video Creator

PowToon is an online tool that allows anyone to make great looking animations and presentations. With PowToon animations are as easy as PowerPoints. The free version of the product allows you to create videos that are up to 5 minutes long.  Videos can include text, your personal images, images from a large selection of stock drawings, music, and voice overs. 

Free accounts allow you to export up to 30 videos a month to YouTube, or embed your video on another site. Students can email videos directly to teachers as well. Free accounts do have a limited selection of images and tools, but there are still plenty to chose from.

Signing up for a PowToon account is simple as teachers and students can use their Google Apps account information. Once you sign up, it's easy to get started. You can create a PowToon from a blank slate or use one of their great templates.

PowToon is a great tool for teachers, and a wonderful way to have students showcase what they have learned.  What I really love about PowToons is how easy it is to make really professional looking videos.  With PowToons students can focus what really matters, which is including great content.

Check out the PowToon I created in just 5 minutes:



For tutorials on how to use PowToon you can go to http://www.powtoon.com/tutorials/

Newsela: Building Non-Fiction Literacy

Newsela  is a website that allows teachers to assign news that have been indexed to particular Lexile levels. The site also includes quizzes that are linked to the Common Core Standard for Reading Informational Text.  While in beta Newsela is free, the website indicates that they will eventually offer, teacher, school and district subscriptions. It's definitely worth checking out.

Once a teacher creates a Newsela account they can create classes. Students then create a Newsela accounts [they can use their Google accounts] and then register for a teacher's course using the code their teacher provides.

Once students and teachers are enrolled, it's easy to assign articles to students. Each article is written at five grade levels from 3 - 12. Based on content, not all articles are written at the lower grade levels. Teachers can add highlighting which students can see. Teachers can also view what students have highlighted in the article. The Newsela Knowledge base says that annotations and asynchronous threaded discussion boards will be added soon.

Newsela looks like a great way to get students reading across the content areas. If you are using Newsela let me know what you think in the comment section below.

Two more things:

If you are looking for articles with questions linked to particular anchors you can't search for them yet. But you can use the following link and replace the "2" with the anchor you are searching for.

http://newsela.com/articles/?anchor=2

Yes, you can use Newsela, and take quizzes using an iPad (they are still working on Android optimization).

Remind 101 - Free Private Messaging (updated)

I first wrote about Remind101 in March of 2012 while it was still in Beta. I thought that it was worth writing another blog post about it as they have made some improvements to the site and added a mobile application on the iTunes and Google Play stores.

Remind101 is a free service for teachers that allows students and parents to sign up for text or email notifications. The site keeps phone numbers private so teachers don't need to be concerned about sharing private information or gathering student phone numbers.

It's super easy to use.  Just sign-up with their service, create up to 10 classes, give students the enrollment instructions and start sending messages. Students can enroll for emails or texts depending on what they chose. All they have to do is send a message with your class code to the phone number they are given. It's that easy.  For younger students you can have parents enroll their phone number.

One of my favorite things is that you can schedule messages to be sent at a later time. The service also provides you with a record of all the messages that you have sent.  For now it is only a one way messaging service, but it's a great way to remind students about upcoming assignments, field trips, club reminders, etc.

Lucidpress: Collaborative Layout and Design free for Google Apps for Ed Schools

The folks at Lucid Software, the creators of Lucidchart have a new product Lucidpress and once again they are giving Google Apps for Ed users free licenses!   Here at Saucon we have added Lucidpress to our list of Google Apps for Ed which means that you can find a link on the Google Apps toolbar under "More" 

Lucidpress in a document creation tool that allows you to easily make great looking print and digital documents in a collaborative online environment.  

Lucidpress is a great alternative to Pages and Word when you want students to create great looking documents.  Because students have anytime anywhere access, they can work at school and at home regardless of whether they have a Mac or a PC. Additionally, students can share projects and work collaboratively in real time. The comment feature allows teachers to give all important formative feedback while the project in still in process.

But Lucidpress isn't just about recreating the typical print brochure or newsletter. It's all about digital, and with Lucidpress you can embed links, videos, scrolling text boxes, image galleries, and more.  These great interactive digital documents can be accessed on any device with a web browser! It's a great way for students to showcase what they have learned, and a great way to help students achieve the new Common Core standards for Digital Literacy. 

Because Lucidpress is integrate with Google Drive you can access text that you have already stored in a Google Doc with just one click, and all your Lucidpress projects can be stored in your Google Drive for easy access. 

Lucidpress isn't just for students to use. Imagine sending a home beautiful, dynamic, digital newsletter. 

Lucidpress in 60 seconds from Lucid Chart on Vimeo.

The Answer Pad: Fast grading of your current exams

The Answer Pad and it's accompanying app TapIt are a great way to save time grading your assessments. With The Answer Pad students can submit their answers to your exams online either via The Answer Pad website of the free TapIt app for iPads. Additionally, the "Go Interactive" feature is a great way to incorporate real time formative assessments into the classroom.

While students use the App to complete the assessments, the teacher must create the answer sheets online via the Answer Pad website.  Sign up is free and teachers can use the basic functionalities of The Answer Pad with 8 separate classes and up to 200 students for no cost. Their are teacher and school level subscriptions available which include additional functionalities like the ability to annotate student answers, and the ability to show the exam questions to students (web browser version only).

Teachers using The Answer Pad will need to create an account and then create groups for their classes. Once you create a group you can either manually enroll students, or create a code for students to enroll in your course.  Teachers then need to create answer sheets for their assessments.

The Answer Pad does not show exam questions but simply the answer sheet. Think of it as an online version of the old fashioned bubble sheet, but with some great added functionalities. For example with TapIt, you can link answer sheets to Common Core standards and create standards based assessments!  Answers can be multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank, number wheel, a coordinate grid, and more. These options can be modified even further by the teacher to create a large variety of options. Unfortunately their is no option for an essay answer that the teacher would grade, this would make for a great addition to keep all the exam results in one location.

Another great feature in "Go Interactive" which only works with the iPad App. With this, teachers can send quick formative assessments to students including the ability to make quick sketches that they can submit to the teacher.

One thing that I wish you could do was somehow "lock" students into the app. I'm not sure this is something that is even a technical possibility, but it would help keep students from quick app switching to their notes or websites.

You can see all of these features in a video by The Answer Pad here:

Subtext: The best e-reader for students and teachers

Subtext is a free iPad app that allows for students and teachers to collaboratively read any text. With subtext you can embed meaningful discussion, as well as enrichment materials, assignments, and quizzes directly into the text of your document.  It is simply the best way for students and teachers who have iPads to read any text.

Teachers can create reading groups and then share a text with them. Options for text include ebooks (free and purchased through subtext), Web clips, and PDF files. Once a teacher uploads the text, they can assign it to a group for reading.

Subtext allows a teacher to then assign a reading range, create activities, ask questions (including self grading multiple choice and T/F) based on the readings, have students highlight and tag in the text, and more. Students can create a book blog, which is a writing summary at the end of a chapter.

Teachers can even track student progress on text including reading speed, word look-ups, highlights, notes and quiz results. Students can then discuss the text with classmates and teachers in a safe controlled environment.

For years teachers have been successfully using blogs to engage students in text based discussions. Subtext takes it to the next level by making it easier to place the discussions in context.

Are you using subtext successfully in the class, we'd love to hear about it, leave a comment below.

Story Lines for Schools: Great Vocabulary game for one or many iPads in the classroom

If you don't have a classroom set or iPads, or even if you do, Storylines for Schools (Free) can be a great way to review vocabulary and concepts with students, or as a way to lead into a class discussion.

Storylines is basically the old game of telephone, but with pictures. What's great about it is that students don't need to create accounts or have their own iPad in order to play.

With Storylines students start with a vocabulary word, phrase, or quote and then draw a picture to represent the words. If students have accounts and their own iPad they can digitally "pass" the game to the next student. If not, the student just has to physically pass the iPad to their neighbor.

This second student sees only the picture and must guess what the word, phrase or quote is that was presented. They, in turn, must decide what the picture represents by writing their own phrase or word down. The game then continues to the next student who will draw the second phrase.  The game can be played with 3, 5, 7, or 9 players.

When finished, you can play back the entire sequence of phrases and pictures. This is a great way to get conversation started in class around concept that students may be having a difficult time with, or simply to review vocabulary. Finished Storylines can be emailed to the teacher for replay later on.

*The free version of Storylines for Schools only allows you to doodle with a black pen, for additional colors and pens you need to complete an in App purchase

Summer Tech Time!

We all know how hard it can be for teachers to keep up with new technology tools during the school year. With everything that we do in and out of the classroom, the time to explore new possibilities just isn't there sometimes. That's why summer is the perfect time for tech!!

So here are just a few suggestions for summer tech exploration:

Read some EdTech Blogs 

• Here is a list of the Best Education Blogs of 2012

Join Twitter and start following some really innovative teachers.

•  Here is a great teacher guide to using Twitter

Have fun checking out ideas on Pinterest

• Here is a guide to using Pinterest and a list of educators to follow

Read some inspiring articles on Edutopia

If you have an iPad download some new Apps and play around

• Here are a few sites with app reviews for teachers:
• Apps for Teachers
• Teachers with Apps
• Or just brows the iTunes app store!

This list should keep you busy until fall.

Photo by Daniel Schwen (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons

Mural.ly: Collaborative Visual Brainstorming... and more

I love any tool that allows for students to collaborate in real time. I also love tools that allow students to visually organize digital information. Enter Mural.ly.

Mural.ly is a a free (Pro-Version with additional features available) tool that allows you to "stick" images, web-clips, documents in your google drive, shapes, stickers, and backgrounds, to name a few options, onto a board.

This is a great tool for brainstorming, collecting research, creating info-graphics   putting together final presentations to display student work...  There are really endless possibilites for this great tool in the classroom.  You can even create a guided walkthough of your board once you have 10 items. This turns Mural.ly into a presentation tool similar to Prezi.

A simple drag and drop interface makes creating a board quick and easy for all. Integration with Google, makes it easy for students in Google Apps schools to sign in and begin collaborating.  The video at the bottom of this post shows just how easy it is to use Mural.ly.

With the free version their are some limits. You cannot print or download your creation, but you can share the link or embed your board on a webpage. (See the amazing work I created in just 2 minutes!) 

Other great features are the live feed from the board that allows teachers to monitor student progress. I also really like the image search from Google built right in.

Definitely another great tool every teacher should add to their digital tool-kit.

Quick intro video from the folks at Mural.ly

Using Google Drive to Embed Documents and Video

Your Google Drive provides an easy way to embed Documents and Video into websites.  Any document that Google Drive can open to view (I've tested .doc, .pdf, and .ppt) as well as any image or video files that can be previewed in Google Drive can be embedded by using an embed code that you can grab from the "file" menu.

You MUST make sure to make the file that you want to embed "public" under the sharing menu or else those who visit your website will not be able to see the content of your embed.  Google is kind enough to display the sharing settings on your file above the embed link to remind you to change it if not set to public. 

The video below was embedded from my Google Drive:

Video credits to the Students of Padua Academy. Thanks for making a great video that always get's my students talking about Women's Suffrage.

Skype in the Classroom

With a simple webcam teachers can bring the entire world into the K-12 classroom.  About two years ago Skype created Skype in the Classroom to help teachers connect with other classrooms and experts in their field around the world.  Since then the service has become very successful and robust.  According to the Skype website, their are over 57,000 teachers around the world using Skype in the Classroom to enrich their student's learning experience.

Skype in the Classroom provides a free way for teachers to make connections around the globe.  You can post your own lesson ideas in order to find a match for your project, or you can search through projects posted by teachers and partner organizations from around the world. There is also an entire section for classrooms looking to create Skype "penpals", which is a great opportunity to create long term relationships with students from around the globe.

You can video chat in French with students in Paris, discuss current events live with students in the Middle East.  These one-to-one classroom connections are great for World Language learners and Social Studies classrooms looking to connect with kids living around the globe.

Additionally, many experts offer free web chats on their area of expertise.  Examples of lessons with experts that can found on Skype at present include:

• Speak with experts about Osprey bird migration patterns;
• Take a virtual eco tour of Sub-Saharan Africa;
• Bobsled math with Olympic champions;
• Skype with a Yellowstone Ranger.

These lessons allow for students to experience places they may never be able to visit in person. 

Check out Skype in The Classroom to bring the world to your students. 

Google Takeout: Take your Google Drive Files With You When You Graduate

Over the past three years Saucon students have increasingly used Google Drive as their main Document/ Spreadsheet/ Presentation creation tool.  This year we have been getting a lot of questions from graduating seniors about how they can take what they have in their Drive with them.


Google Takeout is a little known Google tool that allows you to download data from many of Google's top services.   It's as easy as:

1. Go to google.com/takeout then log into the Google account you want to get your Docs from.
2. Click on the "Choose Services" button.
3. Click on "Drive"
4. Click "Create Archive"













5. You will then be prompted to select if you want to download your entire drive or just certain folders. The default download format for all docs will the the corresponding Microsoft Office format. You can change this by clicking on the arrow next to "configure" and changing the download type.

6. You can then click on the to the Downloads button and you will see a list of your downloads. Click download and the file will save to your local drive.

Google Voice Comments

 Founded on the belief that one-on-one mentoring sessions are really the best way to teach writing, but understanding that due to time constraints this is almost always impossible, the team at learn.ly added to the Google Docs comments functionality by allowing teachers to leave voice feedback.  

Learn.ly "Audio Feedback" is a free, easy to install, and easy to use tool within Google Docs.  In addition to being a great way for teachers to leave feedback, learn.ly can also be used for peer editing.  I can also see World Language teachers using feed.ly to have students write and speak in one assignment.

In order to record with learn.ly you must first install the app into your Google Docs.

• Right lick on any GDoc in your Google Drive 
• Select "Open With" and then "Connect more Apps
• Search for "voice" and you will see "Voice Comments" click add.

• Once you have added the app you can click on any GDoc that you want to add a voice comment to, right click and select "open with" and then "voice comments". This will take you to the voice comment editor. 

Check out the video below to see how easy it is to use learn.ly once installed.




Students can get to their feedback by opening their Google Doc and clicking on the comments button. They will then see a link to the learn.ly screen where they can review your feedback.

Padlet: New features make this a winner for the classroom

Several years ago I was introduced to a fun little tool called "Wallwisher".  I gave up on it because it was a little glitchy and was lacking some functionality that I was looking for.  Just this week I took another look and boy am I pleasantly surprised.

Wallwisher is now Padlet and comes with a whole host of features that make it perfect for teachers. So what is Padlet? Basically, it's a digital "wall" or "corkboard" where anyone can stick digital artifacts. This makes it perfect for many different instructional purposes.

So why do I love Padlet?

Cost: Padlet is free... can't beat that. For many activities students don't even need to create an account.

Collaboration:  Many can collaborate in creating a Padlet, and best of all they can work on it at the same time and changes appear immediately. Perfect for whole class or group activities.

Privacy: You can set the privacy levels from only those you specifically name via email, password protected  hidden link, or totally public.  I also really like the new "moderate posts" option. Creating hidden link boards where students can easily access, but don't need to log-in is great for brainstorming, but can be a little worrisome. This new feature now makes Padlet the perfect place for quick whole class brainstorming activities.

East of Use:  Just double click anywhere in the space and add your text, images, or video. You can even drag and drop pictures right from any other application onto wall.

Possibilities:  The possibilities for Padlet use in the classroom are only limited by teacher imagination, which we all know is unlimited. So here are just a few simple ideas to get all you out there on the web thinking about uses for this tool, please share any more you come up with in the comments section.

• Create a timeline with videos and images (see example below),
• KWL activity. Create one wall for what students know, one for what the want to know, and one at the end of the unit for what they learned,
• Students to comment on videos that they are watching in class,
• Assess student understanding at the end of a chapter/unit,
• Use as a way for students to brainstorm in a group on topics,
• A great place to visually collect group research,
• Create posters on people/places/topics.

Created with Padlet

Infuse Learning: Free Learner Response System for Any Device

Being able to get real time feedback from students during a lesson is invaluable.  I recently learned about another great tool for getting student feedback. InfuseLearning is a free tool for teachers and students that works on any internet enabled device.

InfuseLearning is a lot like Socrative, which I wrote about in a prior post. However, there are some features that I like about InfuseLearning that are not available in Socrative.

1. Any Device:

• You don't need any particular device to use InfuseLearning. While we are 1:1 with iPads in 7th grade, most of our teachers only have access to MacBooks or Chromebooks. With InfuseLearning you can use any device.

2. No software to install or accounts to create on the student side:

• Students simply navigate to student.infuselearning.com enter your "room ID" number and then enter their name. While you can create classes of students to track progress, students do not ever need to create an account. 

3. Interactive Tools:

• As can be seen the image of the teacher screen below, there are many options for quick assessments. Additionally it's easy to create quizzes to share with students. However InfuseDraw and InfuseLink are really useful classroom tools. With InfuseDraw students can quickly doodle an answer, like with dry erase boards. However, teachers can also send drawings and pictures for students to annotate. InfuseLink allows you to send a link to a website so a whole class can quickly navigate to the same site.

4. Text to Speech and Language Conversion:

• Any text typed into InfuseLearning can be read to students by simply clicking on the speaker icon next to it.  And if that weren't amazing enough, the app will also translate text (including your questions) into multiple languages and speak in those languages as well!

Teacher Screen:

Fun with fake T-Shirts, SMS, Twitter, and Facebook Pages

How can we tell if our students are really understanding the material that they are learning? I have found that simple, creative, assessment strategies can really help teachers tell if students are really "getting"Hamlet, or understanding the important concepts of the American Revolution. Below is a list of websites that can help teachers create short easy free assessment opportunites that when used properly can allow our students to show understanding.

T-shirt Creator:

- Have students create t-shirts to summarize an idea using graphics and short slogans.

http://www.customink.com/

SMS generator:

- Generate brief text conversations between fictional or historical characters, or between different types of cells in biology class, or using a world language.

http://www.classtools.net/SMS/
http://iphonefaketext.com/
http://ifaketext.com/
http://www.iphonetextgenerator.com/

Twitter Conversation:

- Similar to text messages, but you can add more than two people to the conversation.



http://faketweetbuilder.com/
http://www.classtools.net/twister/

Facebook:

- Great way to do character analysis. I've even seen teachers to FB pages for chemical elements.

http://thewallmachine.com/
http://www.classtools.net/fb/home/page

Google Maps Labs: Measurement Tool

Their seem to be an infinite number of uses for Google products in the classroom. My most recent discovery was the distance measurement tool in Google Maps.  After a weekend spend walking around Manhattan I was wondering just how far I had ambled around the island.  A quick google search and I soon discovered the Distance Measurement Lab in Google Maps.  What a great tool, and so many great ideas for use in the classroom came to mind.  

To enable the distance measurement tool, just go to Google Maps, and then look carefully in the lower left hand corner of your screen for the "Maps Labs" link. 

At that point a small ruller will pop up in the corner of your map. Clicking on it will bring up the distance measurement tool. 

Your options for units are quite expansive.  In basic view you can choose between Metric and English.  However, a click on "I'm feeling Geeky" will reveal a plethora of measurement options.  For the record from NYC to Hellertown, Pa is 219,080 Egyptian Old Royal Cubits (as the crow flies).  Other options include football fields, furlongs, and Potrzebies (a measurement equal to the thickness of Mad issue 26).  The possibilities for math related to unit conversion alone are endless!

Once you chose your unit, simply click on the map and it will tell you the distance between the points.  Super easy, and so many lesson ideas.  Elementary students can practice estimation based on scale and then test their guesses with the rules.  Social studies teachers can have students figure out approximate distances between battles of the Civil War.  Math teachers can create fun interactive word problems based on locations on a map.  If you have any other ideas, please add them to the comment section below. 

In case you were wondering, I walked approximately 11.08 miles around the island of Manhattan last Saturday... no wonder my feet hurt!

Doctopus: Making Google Doc Management a Breeze

Google Docs are a great way to share work with students, and for students to work on group projects. But sometimes managing docs can be a real pain.  Doctopus is an amazing tool created by Andrew Stillman (a former teacher) using Google Apps Scripts.

Using a spreadsheet that contains a class roster teachers can easily distribute and manage shared google documents. Google docs/sheets/presentations that the teacher creates are copied and shared with the correct students with easy.  If you have already created contact groups for your classes here is an easy way to create the spreadsheet, thanks to one of the great teachers at my school for this tip!

1) export each group as a csv file

2) open the csv file (defaults to Excel)

3) re-save as an Excel sheet (important step)

4) import and convert the excel sheet in Google docs

The scrip even allows for recording grades, and comments that can be emailed to students with one click. If that weren't great enough, Doctopus now allows you to use Rubrics for grading (Goobrics)!

The following video provides a great walkthrough of how to use Doctopus in the classroom.  Below is a video on how to use the new addition to Docotopus, Goobric.





Goobric tutorial

Digital Research Help: Bamboo Dirt

Once in a while I come across a great site that organizes lots of other great sites in a way that is incredibly useful for students and teachers. BambooDiRT is just such a site.

Bamboo DiRT is "a tool, service, and collection registry of digital research tools for scholarly use." It was created as a partnership between several major Universities.  BambooDiRT easily helps students find the perfect digital research tool for there needs.  

The site simple states "I need a digital research tool to...." and then lists several possibilities including mangage tasks, share bookmarks, visualize data, write a paper, analyze data, etc.  Follow the links to a  list of annotated web tools that will help you accomplish your desired task.  These tools can then be sorted bu platform, cost, etc.

Go ahead, check it out....

Using Google Calendar to Distribute Student Assignments

All teachers know that communication between students, teachers, and parents is invaluable.  With Google Calendars you can easily keep everyone informed about what's going on in your class as well as have a simple way to distribute documents.

Google Calendars can be made public and then embedded (see below) or linked to (click here for example).  With the "Add an Attachment" feature in Google Calendar events teachers can easily share assignments with students.  For an example of how this works click on the March 5, 2013 entry entitled Webquest. Simply click on the entry and then "more details" you will see the document entitled "executive branch webquest.doc"  clicking on that link will download the document.

Particularly in the K-6 environment there may be no need for using a full featured learning management system such as Moodle, and often school websites are cumbersome for uploading documents. Google calendars provide a simple, free alternative for teachers who just want to allow students to get copies of missed or lost assignments.

To use a calendar as a communication and document distribution system follow these steps:

1. Create a new calendar, then need to set the calendar view to Public under the system settings.
2. Under calendar settings/labs make sure to enable the add attachments lab 
3. Create a new event like you normally would, then click on the add attachments link. (Make sure to set the permissions of the document in your Google Drive so that those who you want to access will be able to do so) 

Knowmia - The solution for the flipped classroom?

Lately teachers have been very interested in using video to supplement learning in the classroom. Some use video in the "flipped classroom" model where students learn the material via assignments (including video) before class and others find that video can be a great reinforcement after class for students to review.

Some teachers create their own videos and others use the plethora of online resources that can be found on YouTube, PBS, TED, Kahn Academy, Discovery Ed, etc.  Some send students to the websites directly, and others use Wikis, Moodles, Google Sites, etc. to post their own content or links to outside content.

All of this can be time consuming and difficult for students and teachers to navigate. That is where Knowmia comes in. Knowmia is a free service that allows teachers to create lessons centered around videos that they find anywhere on the web, within Knowmia's own growing selection of teacher created videos, created on their computer, or that they created using Knowmia's feature rich iPad app.

The iPad app allows for teachers to create lessons by annotating slides and recording their voice. There is even the option to include a face recording in the corner.  The app allows you to import images and video to use as props, draw directly on the canvas, set different backgrounds including graph paper, among other features. Included in the app is an easy to learn from tutorial for getting started. Once complete Lessons can be uploaded directly to Knowmia or exported in editable format for other teachers to work on.

Since the App is free, students can use it to create their own lessons to share with the teacher that can be played in the App. The teacher could then share select lessons to their own Knowmia account.

What's great about Knowmia is that in addition to the video, teachers can add relevant links, Textbook references, and documents. Students do not need an account to view Knowmia lessons. In the future they are planning to allow tracking of when students complete lessons, which would be a great addition to the site.

UPDATE: Knowmia has introduced the new assignment wizard in Beta. Learn all about it here. 

At that point students would have to create accounts. This would require email to sign up, which can be an issue for some districts.  Hopefully they will create another option for those districts that do not have email.

Presently to share your lessons with students you need to provide them with the link to the lesson. Like this (Click here for an example lesson). You can also embed lessons directly on your website.  If students do have an account they can favorite them and they will be stored in the "My Knowmia" section of the website.  Once students are on one of your videos, they can access all your other videos by clicking on your name. It would be nice if it were easier to search for videos by teacher.

Knowmania videos are on hosted YouTube, which means that many students, including ours at Saucon will not be able to see them in school. Hopefully we can find a way around this soon. In the meantime it is still a great website, and companion app.

WeVideo - Collaborative Online Video

We have been fans of iMovie at Saucon since we got our first MacBooks in 2008.  However, there were some limitations to the software that made it cumbersome for our teachers. One of the biggest was that students had to use the same laptop for the entire project as iMovie projects could not be stored on network drives. This meant that one student was responsible for the login to that Mac and should they be absent all work on the project was ground to a halt.  I have been looking for many years now for a good online video editing solution and I think I may have finally found it.

WeVideo is a highly robust online video editing tool that is free for up to 15 minutes of export time per month.  Since WeVideo is web based students can start a project in school and continue at home, whatever platform they are using in either location. Additionally, students can collaborate on Video projects, allowing for more than one student (up to 5 on the free version) to participate in the editing process. Students with access to Google Apps (like here at Saucon) can link their WeVideo account to Google Drive and create shared project folders for organizing all their media and sharing with fellow students.

WeVideo is surprisingly full featured for an online service.  According their site they support "All" file formats for video and images.  Having spent countless hours fighting with video conversion software, this is definitely a plus.  WeVideo also includes three different Editors: Storyboard, Timeline, and Full Featured.  This is great for classroom settings because you can use the simple Storyboard editor for K-6 students and for quick projects, but for more advance projects and older students you can easily switch to allow for more editing options.  WeVideo also has over 400 royalty-free music titles as well as graphics and effects. While basic accounts are free, WeVideo offer premium accounts for schools starting at $19.99 per year.

Digital storytelling is a great way to assess project based learning and provides a key link to the Common Core standards.  With WeVideo teachers have one more great tool at their disposal.