Links You’ll Love
Google Assignments is a new feature that allows you to assign via Google Docs, creating a unique document per student. It’s separate from Google Classroom and in beta testing right now. One of its coolest features is the ability to analyze authenticity (in other words, plagiarism). Sign up to beta test here.
Did you know you can investigate artworks, collections and stories from around the world via the Google Cultural Institute? Would you like to “get to know” Sigmund Freud or Frederick Douglas? Learn about the invention of the espresso machine? Visit the Google Cultural Institute here.
Links You’ll Love
If you’re a Google Classroom user, check out this post to learn about some of the updates to this awesome Google app.
When I hear “place mats,” I think of dinner, don’t you? This blog post, though, at discusses place mats as an instructional model used to combine independent thinking with collaboration. The post gives step-by-step instructions to use GAFE to create a collaborative template. Very nice!
I’ve mentioned GoNoodle before, but I wanted to remind you about this great source for movement videos. They’ve added an indoor recess section with videos that last up to 19 minutes. There are Zumba activities, secret handshake partner exercises, and brain boosters for great short movement breaks as well.
Versal is a new platform to create online learning experiences. You can embed video, create quizzes, and add timelines. This is an amazing and robust website. I’m thinking about creating a workshop to explore this over the summer – let me know if you’re interested.
Links You’ll Love
FakeiPhoneText and iFakeText are a simple little websites where you can enter text and the site will render an image that looks like it’s a text. This would be a great way for students to create fake texts between two historical characters. Ifaketext even lets you choose your carrier.
Need an easy way to create an animated video? Check out Explee. You can add images, text, music and voiceovers. Movies export to YouTube or can be downloaded.
Design thinking – tackling a problem at a deep level – is something you can do with your students at any grade level. This article gives some valuable tips on how to do it with iPads.
You know that there have been dozens of times when you thought, “if only I could create a Google form from this Google doc that I have…” If you install the Google add-on Doc to Form, you can do that! Check it out!
Links You’ll Love
The Public Domain Project is another source for free public domain images and media files. Caution – this site also featured images that are available for purchase, so be sure to search using the search bar (not the category links at the top).
Interested in flipping your classroom? Here’s a nice post at with a video and an overview of tools you might find helpful.
Power Google Tip: Let’s say you share a Google document with your students or colleagues, but you want them to make a copy of it and then edit that one. You could certainly use Classroom for this, but here’s a great tip if you just want to do it through Google drive and not use Classroom. See the URL at the top of your document? Send that to your users, but change “edit” at the end to “copy.” You’ll still have to share it so your users can access it, but this way everyone will get a copy of your original in their own drive. See this post for more information.
Links You’ll Love
Power Google Tip: Need to look something up or search for an image while working in Google docs on a computer (not iOS)? This is terrific – go to Tools > Research to open a Research pane. There you can search the dictionary, for an image, among quotes and more. You can even specify that you want to find images that are copyright free. Slick!
Movenote is a slick website where you can easily create movies. You can upload existing content like PDF files or jpgs, or you can record using the computer’s camera. You can link it with your Google account to access your Google drive docs, too. Movies can be shared, downloaded or embedded. There’s a free iOS app, too!
I still have nightmares about the time I was in charge of timing students during a Lag BaOmer relay race. I just couldn’t keep those kids straight! Clearly, I needed the Meeting Monopolizer app, which Daniel shared with me this week. You can read more about this 99 cent wonder here. It was originally designed to track which meeting-goer monopolizes your meetings, but apparently people have found more and more uses for it, including timing relays and tracking class participation.
Links You’ll Love
Infographics are all the rage now, for good reason. And knowing how to translate written information into graphics is a great skill. Piktochart is a nice website for creating your own infographics, reports and presentations. Like many other sites, it offers both free and premium (meaning, they cost money) templates, but the free templates look really good.
Well, this is nice . . . MindMup gives you a free cloud-based space to create collaborative mind maps shared through Google! Very nice.
Have you fallen in love with Google Classroom and created fabulous original lessons using the platform? If your answer is yes, you could open your own Google Classroom store. Who knows? You could sell some stuff!
Flipquiz is another fun site to create a jeopardy-type game. Create a category, add your questions, and go. This would be terrific for students to use!
Plenty of you are discovering that Google is a great place to create graphic organizers, especially if you want to share them with your students. The AppsUserGroup has a bunch of awesome templates you can download for free.
OOOOOOH – this is beautiful. If you want to create a really slick timeline (or have your students create them . . . ), check out Timeline JS. You begin with a Google spreadsheet listing the event, dates, text and links to any online media like movies or photos, and Timeline JS will create a timeline for you.
This is the coolest thing . . . what would happen if you poured molten aluminum in an abandoned ant colony? I know that you’ve wondered that often. Well, now you don’t have to wonder any more, thanks to AntHill Art. The videos are very cool, and would be terrific to share with students who are interested in what an ant colony actually looks like. All those little tunnels!
Links You’ll Love
Most of us are old enough (cough, cough) to remember when there were no food allergies. When we could throw a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter into a bag so kids didn’t go hungry on field trips . . . Well, Stanford University is making some fascinating inroads into bringing those days back. Read more about Stanford’s medical trial in oral immunotherapy here.
The folks at TED-Ed have created a video and lesson for every element on the periodic table. You can view them by starting here. Not only are there videos, but there are also accompanying lesson plans with questions to deepen understanding, suggestions for further research, and, in some cases, guided discussion questions. This is obviously a great resource for teaching the periodic table, but also a good model for how to use video as a starting point for lessons.
I’m super excited about this article on digital learning. The author, Dr. Tim Clark, focuses on the various elements of a classroom (essential questions, assessment, classroom environment, etc.) and how technology can support them. I like this so much that I’m thinking about structuring a series of classes around this concept – let me know if you’d be interested.
Oh my! Wait’ll you see THIS! Here’s a beyond awesome Google tip: Did you notice that there’s a “Web clipboard” command under the Edit menu in many Google apps like Slides, Docs and Drawing? Do you have ANY idea what that means? Check it out: select the thing you want to copy to the web clipboard, and go to Edit > Web clipboard. Select “copy selection to web clipboard.” Unlike the invisible Mac clipboard that can only hold one item at a time, Google will save all the things you copy. Then you can paste whatever you’ve copied at a later date. But wait! There’s more. That elegant little web clipboard is available on any computer, any time you log in using your Google account. How sweet is that? I also tested this with Google Docs on the iPad . . . it worked as long as I used Chrome to edit the Google Doc (as opposed to using the Docs app). If you need a tutorial on this, here’s a good video:
Links You’ll Love
How BIG is Google? Check out this great documentary:
Shake Up Learning is a website that features tips and techniques for educational technology, including Google, mobile learning and social media.
Well, now, this is interesting…here’s a nicely crafted revision of the traditional rubric. Instead of working on all those columns and rows, why not try the single-point rubric? Very cool! Read more here (and I love the name of the website, too!).
Google tip: If you’ve been using Google Classroom, be sure to check out this blog post to get an idea of some of the new features that were introduced this week.
Links You’ll Love
EduCanon is a website that enables you to take a video and assign questions for your students to answer at pre-determined spots. Check out my sample video here. This is great for flipped classes.
Still haven’t signed up for JEDcamp Midwest? What’s holding you back? Here are 10 reasons to sign up TODAY.
Google Tip #1: If you love Google forms (you know I do!), check out this blog post about recent improvements. For instance, you can now shuffle questions (which is great if you want to use a form for an assessment), and limit people to only submitting one response per form. You can also insert a video into a form, which lends itself to using Google Form as part of a flipped classroom experience. Finally, (I LOVE this), when you go to “Send form,” you can now specify a shortened URL, eliminating the need to paste the long URL into goo.gl. Yay!
Google Tip #2: Did you know that you could use Google to “read” PDF files and turn them into text documents? Here’s how:
- Upload your PDF file to your Google drive
- Click in the box to the left of the uploaded file to select
- Click on More (at the top of your screen) and choose “Open with”
- Choose Google Docs
- Google will proceed to open your document. The beginning with have the image, and the digitized text will appear at the end of the document.
Now, it may not be perfect, and you may have to tweak it a little, but it beats retyping!
Wave – nice
I’ve been playing with GoogleWave and I’m trying to get my brain wrapped around it.
In the meantime, though, check out the video Whirled Interactive put together:
About
Debbie Harris is the director of educational technology at the Sager Solomon Schechter Day School in Northbrook, IL. Involved in Jewish education for over thirty years, she has an education degree from Northwestern University with a concentration in instructional media and a master’s degree in professional Jewish studies from Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership. She is skilled in using and teaching desktop publishing, video editing, presentation and animation software; and consults and presents regularly on integrating technology into Judaic studies. Her students podcast, blog, edit video and create claymations. She co-chaired the technology track for CAJE 33 in Vermont, is a SMART Certified Trainer for SMART Notebook, and a 2011 recipient of the Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award for Excellence in Jewish Education.
When not learning, teaching or writing about technology, Debbie likes to sketchnote and craft. She likes to knit, do calligraphy, sew, watercolor, paint fabric and just generally play with fun toys like scrapbooking supplies and anything with texture. Debbie travels to California every summer to paint tallitot with high school aged campers. Finally, she is incredibly proud of her two daughters; Lori, who teaches English at a community college; and Allie, who is the director of the URJ’s Camp Newman in California.
Look for her at:
Debbie Does Desktop
Flickr
Twitter
Diigo
YouTube
Ravelry
Email Debbie here
MuseForJews 