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!