The Friday Tech Tip

The other  school morning my 6 year old daughter who is in Kindergarten got up with me around 5:30 AM . I am in the kitchen getting the coffee going and I typically read for a few minutes to get going in the AM .  Ruby walks in the living room without saying a word and goes and gets her Kindle Fire tablet and her headphones and sits on the couch. Not a "Good morning Daddy", nothing, just wakes up,gets her device and sits on the couch and stares at the screen. I immediately think, "well great!,  parent fail, we're having too much screen time and she's addicted to the screen and she is 6. Am I modeling this behavior  for her? ".  Just to put myself a little  more over the edge I say Good morning and then I inquire about what she is watching.  Her device has  parent controls enabled so she can play kid games, and watch kid videos etc. . . so, anyhow, to put me over the edge a little more she is watching a Youtube Kids video of girls her age pl...

Happy Friday! As we continue to make the switch to the Google Suite Platform I wanted to make you aware of a few ways that our Google Suite can help with student projects. New Google Sites -  Sites.google.com/new   Is a great way for students to show what they know.  All of our teachers and students now have access to Google Sites. Google sites are a great way for students to build their own website. It is very easy to insert pages, insert Youtube videos, Google Docs, Google Presentations, maps etc. . . into Google Sites.  Sites can be collaborative meaning that more than one person can enter data. This would be a great resource for students to show what they know beyond a written project. Here are some directions to help get you started . Google MyMaps -  Google Mymaps is actually a great way for students to "pin" what they know. They can create a map and drop pins in specific places and include weblinks, Google Docs, Google drawing etc. . into the map. ...

Happy Friday! The other day I was asked about places to find good Primary sources for our students.  Below I am going to list some of my  favorites Google Arts and Culture -  Here students can view High quality art work, photography, and music.  Students can zoom in on famous pieces of art from around the world. Also, a new feature is that they have 360 Degree videos. This was a little mind blowing for me.  Students can sign in with their Google Account and save pictures, art, and videos.  Check out the video below. You can use the arrows in the left hand corner to rotate the video! The National Archives   -  National Archives has diaries, pictures, music, etc. . . A feature that is new to me is DocsTeach .  This is a tool for educators to discover and create lesson plans and search for specific documents. Finally, the Digital Public Library of America   is a collaboration with  Public Libraries  and ...

Happy Friday!  Last week I had several people say that they enjoyed hearing about some updates to some technology products that you already use so I want to continue that with some updates that are Google  Specific Quick Access in Drive -   Quick Access is a tool in Google Drive that is  actually Artificial Intelligence that learns how you use Google Drive and predicts what files that you may need. You can turn this on or off in the settings tab of Google Drive. Google Docs has a template Gallery -  This is constantly being updated.  if you or your students go to docs.google.com they can choose from a variety of templates to create a work. There are templates for letters.reports, science labs, etc. . Remember the benefit of doing this in Google is that you and your students can collaborate - leave comments, suggest edits etc. ..  Comments -  Now when you make a copy of a document you can choose to also copy the comments. When ...

Happy Friday! I'm beginning to update and add a few more tools to our Digital Resource page on  our Bit.ly/ecsdit site.  Here are 5 favorite tools that have had updates Screencastomatic - Screencastomatic is a free software that allows students to record screencasts.  This is a wonderful way for students to be able to teach and explain.  This used to be only available for students who have windows or mac devices but in the last few weeks they have made this available for Chromebooks! Google Earth -  Google Earth is now web based! Yesterday our Primary School Teachers got to explore this feature and talked about how this could be incorporated in their curriculum. One of my favorite features is the "Voyager" feature. There are premade virtual fieldtrips for you and your students. This can be used as whole group instruction or as a center or in the 1:1 setting Dot Storming - Dot Storming is a great way to brain storm and gather ideas....

Happy Friday and happy almost long weekend! This past week I met with our representative for Google Read and Write and Equatio.  Equatio is a math extension that is pushed out to all students.  Teachers can access Equatio by either signing into chrome (it should come up automatically) OR by going here and adding the extension .   Equatio is  a great way for students and teachers to make math and science digital. Students can speak in their math, draw using chromebooks that are touch screen, or create math using word prediction.  A new feature that our representative showed me that just came out is that Equatio now works with Google Classroom!  Teachers can go to equatio.texthelp.com   and create "math spaces"  this is a way to send out digital work spaces and  manipulative  and math  problems to students.  With Google Classroom integration  teachers can easily send out templates to students and collect student r...

Happy Friday! I've been able to listen in on Impact Checks the last couple of weeks and I have had the great opportunity to learn about all of the great things that are going on here in the Elbert County School District.  One of the things that I have heard is that teachers are using the comments feature in Google Docs to help students with the writing process.  I was so proud to hear that this is being embraced and I think that it is really going to help our students become better writers. One of the questions that was asked was "Clint, how can we make this more authentic"  I did some research and have come across a Free resource that I have pushed out to everyone in the district called Kaizena .  Kaizena is a way to leave voice  comments on Google Documents. I know that it can be difficult to have a writing conference with all students in your class. Now you can do that all at once! " Hey everyone, get your chromebook and load the Kaizena addon and li...