The Friday Tech Tip

Happy Friday! I know you are asking yourself what are some stats about Youtube? A recent  study  from Emarkater states the following. . . "Roughly 1.58 billion individuals will watch YouTube at least once a month in 2018, representing two-thirds of digital video viewers. The share of digital video viewers watching the platform reaches nearly 90% if one excludes the population in China, where YouTube is blocked by the government."  Youtube is powerful.. Youtube is the 2nd most used site in the United State after Google.com.  How many of you reading this have figured out how to fix something or learn something  thanks to Youtube?  Last weekend my family went camping and I watched this video a few times before setting up our new tent. We were star gazing and my daughter asked me which stars were were and I said I had to "get up for a minute" and pulled this up (so much for being unplugged) and could do a better job pointing out constellations....

Happy Friday! This week I have had the chance to participate in some great Professional Learning about Computer Science. On Monday Will Dodd from GYSTC came to the Elementary school and led Professional Learning on robotics in the classroom. I was able to share what I know about letting students know how to code using the free resources on Code.org.  Also, I was able to learn about how A rtificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality are changing the way Professional Athletes train .  Bottom line, I believe that this is a skill that all students need to have knowledge about. There will be jobs that will be available for our students that do not even exist yet.  I'm the father of six year old twins and I sometimes have to take a minute for that to sync in. It just makes me sit back and think about how I need to teach and preach my two to be open to new things, be open to change, and apply the skills  and think creatively.  The world is wide open to innovators....

Happy Friday! Our Elbert Innovates class (Teachers who are going through the Google Level 1 Certification) this past week had a great discussion about how our students access information through searches. In my experience in my 7th grade  middle school  classroom a few years ago I would take my students to the computer lab to do research and  my Middle Schoolers often struggled with trying to filter through the amount of information a Google search would populate on their topic. For example, we would search "cells" and bring up a good zillion (I'm estimating here) links about cells.  Some would be ads, some would be blogs, the top search would be a wikipedia article. .. etc. .. I'm sure you may have experienced this as well. My students had the technical knowledge to search but often would get stuck on finding the pertinent information they needed for their topic. Google has created Search lesson lesson plans on how to teach our students to be better searc...

Happy Friday,  You may have noticed that Google has rolled out some new features in Gmail.  This is a global rollout to everyone in the world who uses Gmail.  I wanted to highlight a few of the new features. Google Calendar, Google Keep and Tasks are now on the right side of your E-mail. You can now quickly access your Calendar. Just the other day I got an email about a meeting and without opening another window I just clicked on the calendar and put the meeting on the calendar. Google Keep is  a great way to keep up with tasks, assign due dates to tasks, and is also collaborative.  Tasklist is just an easy way to create a task and then mark it off the list Another new feature is "Smart compose " or  predictive text - You can choose to turn this on or off. As you are typing an email it will automatically predict words and you can press the tab button to insert this word. If you do not like this feature you can turn it on or off. There ar...

Happy Friday! Our Google Suite for Education is now available to ALL students in our district. Our Elementary and Primary students are logging in with  Clever Badges.  Students scan a QR code with their name and that logs them into the Chromebook. It also logs them into all Google Products (Google Docs, Google Slides. etc..) They are logged in without ever having to type in their username or password.  Here are a few of my favorite ways for students to be able to explore the world using their chromebook. Google Tour Builder -  Google Tour Builder is a way for students to tell stories incorporating Google Maps.  Students can insert Pictures, maps, and text to tell their story.   This would be a fabulous way to incoroprate writing, story telling and multi-media into the classroom. Here is a short video tutoral about Google Tour Builder  Google My Maps -  Google MyMaps is where students can create, share, and collaborate by making th...

Happy Friday! One of the great things about using Chromebooks in the classroom is that we are able to get immiediate results on how our students are understanding.  There are many ways to do digital pulse checks, tickets out the door, and personalized learning with our digtial devices.  Here are 3  tools for Digital Formative Assessment.  3.  Make it a Game Quizziz is a fun way for students to interact with the curriculum. You can play a quiz game.  You as the teacher sign up for an account and then create or beg,borrow, and steal from the quizziz bank.  When students are finished you get immiediate results of how your students are performing. Below is a video tutorial about Quziz 2.  DIGITAL TICKET OUT THE DOOR  Google Classroom is a great way for students to leave written response or to crowd source or post resoucres for others.  Here is a great article about 6 ways that you can use the "Ask a Question" feature...

Happy Friday! In honor of it's 10th Anniversary Google has updated Chrome to a brand new version. Chrome automatically  updates so you may already have it if you do not turn off your computer and turn it back on and it should update. What are some of the main differences? Chrome looks a little different. It looks much cleaner Chrome can now make  your passwords and store them as well. When you create a new account Chrome will suggest a password for you (you don't have to use it but it will make and store a password for you Chrome can be your personal assistant -  You can type in common phrases such as (What is the weather?) and you don't have to hit enter and go to another page. It will show right up for you Here is the official release announcement .  Another update that has been pushed out to students and teachers in the district is Gsuite Training.  For teachers to receive this they must log into Chrome. For students it will automatic...