Google Tips, Kiddom, and Easel.ly

What is it:   Kiddom is a website that allows you pull resources from a variety of reputable sites to use self grading assessments and assignments.

How does it work?  Teachers create a class and invite students through a code. Teachers can then search within Kiddom to find a variety of self-correcting problems, games, and activities through reputable third party sites.  Has curriculum for most subjects grades 4-12.  However, most math and science resources pull from Khan Academy or CK-12, which are integrated into Schoology.

Clear Formatting

Sometimes when copy and pasting into a Google Doc, the source formatting can be difficult to change.  The easiest way to remove this is to keep the copy and pasted material highlighted, then select Clear formatting. 

 

(Image source:  blog.hubspot.com)

Research and Definition Tools

Great for words or topics within a document that students are exploring.  Simply highlight a word in question, right click, and choose either Research.... or Definition.... Either option will open a sidebar containing either the definition of the word, or opens a Google search within the document.

(Image source:  blog.hubspot.com)

What is it:   Easily create professional looking infographics from scratch or from template.

How does it work?  Go to easel.ly and log in with your Google account.  Simply start from scratch or use a template.  Templates allow you to take any format, change the text, colors, backgrounds, etc. to create any chart or picture.

Shadow Puppet, Kiddle, and Schoology Rubrics and CK-12

What is it:  Shadow Puppet is an iPad app that allows students to create their own interactive books.  

How it works:  Students take pictures or video with their iPad, or find images online or using Google Maps.  Students then put them in order and can voice over each slide to tell a story, facts about a topic, or other information.  Final products can then be submitted through Google Classroom or by saving to the camera roll and uploading through Seesaw.  You are limited to 10 pictures or videos to narrate.

What is it:  Kiddle.co is a kid-friendly search engine that filters out (most) questionable content.

How it works:  Have students go to kiddle.co and type in any topic they are looking for.  Although no filters are perfect, this does a very good job filtering out questionable content.  This is a great alternative to Google or other search engines.  From my examples, most resources found are also geared towards kids both in terms of the source and reading level.

There are a few features in Schoology I wanted to share that can be very useful!

Rubrics

What is it:  In Schoology, you can add any rubrics that you use for projects, papers, or lab reports.  

How it works:  In your assignment or from your Gradebook Setup page, you can add rubrics of any size and criteria. Once a rubric is entered, it is available in any of your classes.  These rubrics are available to your students to see the requirements for an assignment.  When grading, you simply click on the appropriate square in the rubric and it automatically tallies the points for you.  Students can also see where they scored on each rubric, which provides quality and timely feedback.

To watch a video on how this works, click here.

CK-12 in Schoology!

What is it:  In Schoology, you can access and CK-12 text, videos, assessments, and real world examples for any grade math and science curriculum!

How it works:  When adding any resource to a Schoology course, there is now an option that pops up for CK-12.  Simply click on this, search for your content, and add to your course!  You can also access anything you have already saved to your resources in the CK-12 website.

For my video tutorial on how this works, click here!

SAS Curriculum, JEOPARDY!, and Google News

What is it:  SAS Curriculum is a free, interactive, supplemental curriculum site for multiple disciplines and grade levels.  Create a course to have students complete activities, or have then complete activities without a course. All activities are searchable by grade level, subject, activity type, and by number.  Everything from games to flashcards to writing, there is a little of everything.

What is it: This is the easiest Jeopardy! template I have every seen or used.  Simply put in your categories, questions, and answers, then click on the "Get Link Here" tab at the bottom and follow the instructions.  Allows you keep score by team within the template.  Easy to use and looks neat and clean when being used!

What is it: www.news.google.com/newspapers is an online collection of American newspapers dating back to 1779.  The majority of papers published in the US have at least some versions published here.  Papers are searchable by event (ex. Lincoln Assassination), name of paper, and date.  A great way to add a first person view to any historical event discussed in class.

Go Formative, Speak It, and Google Docs Updates!

What is it: www.goformative.com is an interactive formative assessment tool that is self grading.

Advantages:  Allows you to put questions in a picture, embed video and other media into an exam.  Results are available in real time.

Disadvantages:  You do have to create a class, but this only takes a few minutes 

What is it: Speak it is a Google Chrome Extension that allows you to have any text on your screen read out loud to you.  Students or teachers simply highlight the text and click on the icon in your omnibar.  This works in exams on Schoology as well!  Settings can be changed within the extension to change the voice, speed, and other features in order to customize.

Advantages: Any printed text can be easily converted to audio.  Great for students who need test questions read out loud to them. Works on any web text that I have tried.

Disadvantage: Doesn't work with PDF documents.

New Google Features!

Columns:  Columns is now a feature in any Google Doc.  To access in any Doc, click on Format and choose how many columns you would like!

Voice Typing:  If you, or a student, are a slow at typing, Google has a Voice Typing option.  Click on tools, Voice Typing, allow access, and then click to start creating text.  To add punctuation, simply say what you would like (period, comma, exclamation point).  

Add ons:  Add ons for all Google programs (Docs, Sheets, Slides) are available for a variety of tasks.  Simply click add ons in any Google program, go to Get Add Ons, and search for anything you would like to try.  Some of the many add ons include accents for foreign languages, equation editors and graph creators for math, mail merge, and many other things