Table of Contents in google docs

This is a tip from +Sarah Scholz.

Make your google docs more user-friendly by adding a table of contents that links to headings in your doc.

This is a more streamlined way for people who publish student packets to make the switch to a paperless classroom.


For more details:

https://support.google.com/docs/answer/116338?hl=en&rd=1

A lightweight hybrid for quizzes in google forms

We've been experimenting with google forms for quizzes recently.

One of the problems with creating a new google forms quiz is that it takes forever to type in the new questions and answers.

A nice hybrid method is to copy the original form for the quiz and provide it to students on paper.

Then, make a google form with the correct number of questions to collect student answers.

This way, you create a self-grading quiz without any of the time investment of retyping the whole thing.

A couple of reminders:

1.  Make sure to collect student last names and first names.
2.  Set up the first question with everything that you need - the number of points it's worth, the number of answer options and whether the questions are required or not, and then duplicate the question (it's the button next to the trash can) for the number of questions you need.
3.  Make sure to choose the correct answer for each question.

Enjoy your self-grading quizzes!

Slowing Down

When you’re presented with your first set of class devices, your first reaction is probably a highly energetic YES! Give me all the things! Teach me all the tech! It’s difficult to be patient when there’s so much to absorb, but we can benefit from slowing down a little and letting the tech come to us.

I’ve worked with chromebooks for the past five years and I still have to remind myself that this is a process that requires extreme patience with both the tech and myself. Piloting tech too quickly often results in frustration and overwhelm, which leads teachers to want to Office Space (you know what I mean) the chromebooks and go back to paper and pen forever. An example: it took me almost a year and a half to really internalize how to grade online, and it’s still a work in progress. This is the beauty of teaching with tech; we learn to be flexible and patient; we learn when to let something go and when to fight through the struggle (in my case, I was not willing to give up on Doctopus/Goobric, and I’m so glad I fought for it).

So, be kind to yourself. There’s no need to be the new Alice Keeler (though I would recommend bookmarking her excellent site AND following her on Twitter @alicekeeler), and there’s no need to fret when something doesn’t go as planned. I like to try to master ONE extension or app per year - that’s it. Trust that the process will be challenging , but that with patience (and a willingness to let your students help you!) you’ll be teaching your colleagues your new favorite platform in no time.

Using Google Classroom's Question Feature by Sarah Scholz

One of the features of Google Classroom I like the most for in-class activities is the question feature. Although I have used the question feature for short answer quizzes, I prefer to use it to display information that students generate, either in groups or on their own.

For example, I wanted my E1H students to practice choosing relevant quotations and explaining these quotations in order to support claims from Romeo and Juliet. I created a game that involved 5 rounds and required students to work in groups to pick a quotation that they would type into the question feature in Google Classroom. Because the computers were merely a tool to gather and display their work, I only allowed one computer per group of 3-4 students.

To create a question, click on the plus sign in the lower right hand corner of one of your Google Classroom pages and navigate up to Question. For this activity, I put the round number and claim on the question line and turned off the ability for students to reply or edit posts.

Because I didn't want to allow students to start a round before the class was ready, I saved each round as a draft and released them as we advanced through the game. I gave students a specific amount of time to locate and type their quotation into Google Classroom.

Once it was posted and student groups had answered, it looked like this:

There are only 6 done because only one student from each group completed the question for his/her group. After the allotted time, I put the answers up on the projector. It looked like this: 

I then had student groups read their quotations and offer their explanation to connect the quotation to the claim. As they were presenting to the class, I took notes so that I could highlight the strengths and weaknesses of their explanations to the class. After I shared some of these notes with the class, I awarded a winner of that round. In the end, the overall winning group received the prize of choosing their debate topic first.

Google Question is a great way to quickly and uniformly get student-generated text up on your projector!

My first Pear Deck

I tried peardeck for the first time this week and really liked how it helped me meet the objectives I was trying to meet - and it was fun!

Peardeck creates interactive slides.  Kids can respond from their device (phone, laptop, tablet) and the teacher can decide to show those responses as a group.

There some limitations to what peardeck can do, but it's ease of logging in and the interactive quality is excellent.

Here's their intro video if you're interested in a nice teaser.

Quizzes in Google Forms - Kim Williams

Quick, put all your Scantrons back in the English office!  You don’t have to find a key, make a new key, put finished Scantrons in order, and stand in front of the machine to feed them one at a time with Google Forms!

Google has added a new feature that allows a form to grade itself with no extensions or add-ons.  If you have short answer and/or essay answers along with multiple choice, you can do that in forms, too, but you will need an add-on called Flubaroo-more on that in a later post.

Creating a form is easy!

I like to start a new Google Form by going to the folder in my Drive where I want it to live and then clicking “New” and “Google Form.”  

Save yourself time if you will be making more than one quiz this year by creating your first one to be your “Quiz Template.”  This will have questions for collecting identifying information.  Then, for every quiz you make, open your quiz template, make a copy of it and start from there.  This way you don’t have to do the personal info questions again and again.  Mine looks like this:

It’s pretty self-explanatory from here as far as setting up your questions.

To get it to be a quiz that will grade itself, simply click on the settings icon that looks like a gear next to the send button. Click “Quizzes.”  Slide the button next to “Make this a quiz.”  Select how you want the grade released.  I suggest “later” for a few reasons the most important of which is to avoid one period forwarding the answers to another period.  

A couple of Google Form Tips

Google Forms has a few annoying idiosyncrasies.  Hopefully, Google will update these features soon.

Sharing

If you want to share one with another teacher, make a copy first and share that.  They should make a copy, but if they don’t, then it won’t affect yours.  Unlike Docs, it won’t let you share “view only” in forms in a way that is useful to other teachers.  They end up getting the form to respond rather than edit.

Organizing in Drive

Google Forms are also harder to organize in Drive than Docs.  So, if you are starting with your quiz template or with a new form, immediately after you title it, go to your drive, search for it, and drag it to the folder where you want it.  It will make your life easier later when you can’t find it and don’t know what you titled it.

All set! So long Scantrons!

Goodreads: Creating a Community for Each Class - Kim Williams

Go to GoodReads.com, click Community, click Groups.

Click Create a Group  in teal on right.

I set mine up as follows:

Then after you click CREATE, you can invite members by a link through Classroom. Thanks to the new schedule feature in Classroom, my classes are scheduled to get this link on August 23!

Google Classroom

A couple of quick reminders for setting up Google Classroom.

1.  Set up your classes.  It's pretty intuitive, but just in case here are some reminders.

2.  Here's how to duplicate your posts if you use the separate classes for each section.

3. You can also schedule posts which helps when you have multiple classes of one prep and you'd like each class to get the info at the beginning of the class.