Aim to Be Awesome, Not Perfect

     So as part of my new-ish job, I am trying to learn and practice new strategies so that I can share them with teachers.  Since I am a former math teacher, I practice with math lessons I used to teach. One of the new things I have been learning about is Hyperdocs . I highly recommend you click on that link and learn more about them! Also, you should check out this episode of the Google Teacher Tribe podcast where they talk about Hyperdocs! I am really impressed how they are taking student- directed learning to a whole new level.  I have done something like it before (see my Probability Slides assignment  or my Proportional/Non-Proportional slides assignment ) but I hadn't ever thought of including all the student work in the same document! Anyway, I had to start playing.  I started with my Proportional/Non-Proportional assignment and turned it into this Hyperdoc . I was definitely impressed with how much more engaging the hyperdoc looked. ...

Even though I am a Level 2 Google Certified Educator, I still want to learn new ways for Google to help me and the teachers I support.  I found this blog post titled "The Magic Automatic Lesson Planner with Google Forms"  a while back and finally, last week, had time to try it! I walked through the process, and while it was great to practice with Autocrat , I didn't know if I would use it as a teacher - or if any of my teachers would.  So I started to think about what I (or others) might need... And then I realized that substitute plans might be the way to go.  Most of the time is it the same thing over and over, and there are always lots of little details that could get missed. So I started thinking about all the little notes that I added to sub plans, like attendance, collecting papers, and whether or not students can work together. The form is designed for those that have 3 different preps. Sections can be duplicated or deleted as needed.  (If you...

So how do you get started with Google Apps for Education? One way to get started is to use Google Forms for a simple formative assessment.  Take a worksheet and turn it in to a Google Form. Copy the information into each question box and copy the answer choices into the form as well. Below are pictures of the worksheet and the Google Form. You can set the form as a quiz and it will grade it for you!  Once kids are done, Google Forms will give you data about the responses.  You can even open the data in Google Sheets to review! 

Technology can be scary, especially if you are someone who doesn't use it often or it seems like it always has an error when you use it.  But it can be a great teaching tool - it can engage students and possibly make your life a little easier.   So, if you want to start small, start with Google Docs.  Have students work in Google Docs - whether they are taking notes, typing a paper, or gathering information -  rather than writing on paper or tying in Microsoft Word.   Here is an example of something my daughter did in 4th grade in Google Docs.   If you are feeling brave, create a folder in your Google Drive and share it with the students.  Have them turn their files into the folder, rather than print.