Deb Norton Tech

 

Hello! How was your first full week of November? Check out these free November downloadable tech backgrounds . Since I am completely immersed in all things artificial intelligence right now, this post caught my eye. I would love to use my Amazon Alexa smart speaker in a classroom. The difficult part is that any smart speaker needs to be connected via wifi, which is pretty tricky when you are using school wifi. I need to revisit using my Alexa smart speaker in school to see if this is even possible. Speaking of AI, I was helping a teacher this week to create a Google Form quiz , and I showed her how to use the artificial intelligence built in to Google Form Quizzes to generate the right and wrong answers. Have you tried this yet ? Another thing that was on my list of things to try was Brush.ninja ! I discovered this animated Gif maker on this Instagram post from Learning In Hand.  I created two gifs using Brush.ninja . The first one was just for fun to learn ...

Google is Treating us with a Few Time-Saving Tricks  Here are a few updates from Google that can make your work more efficient and save you some time. #1 - New Shortcuts Google recently added shorter time-saving tricks to create docs, forms, sheets, sites and slides. Simply go to your URL (omni box) and type in one of these urls: Docs:  doc.new, docs.new, document.new Forms:  form.new, forms.new Sheets:  sheet.new, sheets.new, spreadsheet.new Sites:  site.new, sites.new, website.new Slides:  slides.new, deck.new, presentation.new #2 - Whose Viewing My Google Docs? The activity dashboard in Google Docs, Sheets and Slides is getting a new look (interface). If you haven't used the activity dashboard yet, it is a way to check to see who has viewed a file and when they viewed it. To view the activity dashboard, open a file and click on Tools and then on Activity Dashboard. The new look will make it easier to find data and to collabo...

SLO - Student Learning Objective  SOURCE Each year educators in Wisconsin and other states create a student learning objective (SLO). SLOs are detailed measurable goals for student academic performance that can be achieved within a school year.  This involves collecting data and analyzing the data to show growth towards the goal. Today I'm sharing a few ideas for collecting data and data analysis.  If you're not a numbers person or if you are afraid of spreadsheets and formulas, don't worry. What I'm sharing today is something anyone can do and these tips are really helpful and can save you some time.  Tip #1  Use a Google Form to enter and track data for your students throughout the semester or year.  Google Forms can be shared among teachers if you are planning to work as a team on a common SLO. Here is an example of a Response to Learning tracking log that is shared among a group of teachers. I like how this form collect...

Happy Star Wars Day ! I often get asked, “What is the quickest way for my students to video record themselves on their Chromebooks”. I usually suggest WeVideo or Screencastify . But, there is an update which will make the solution to this question even easier. The Chrome OS camera app now takes both pictures and videos ! The videos can be directly saved to the Chromebook under downloads or to Google Drive. These lesson reflection sheets are a nice resource for closing a lesson.   Today’s Meet is shutting down. Here are some alternatives . One of my colleagues, Val, shared this video on #eyebombing. What a fun way to spread happiness and a bit of humor! ------------------------------------------------------------- Curricular Connecion Google Forms - Can Now Grade Short Answers!! The ability to make a Google Form into a quiz has been around for quite a while now. The quiz feature will automatically grade questions such as multiple choice,...

Many of us use Google forms for assessments or to take a survey, however, did you know that students can submit files in a Google Form?   Just think of the possibilities. . .  students could submit an audio recording where they record their answer verbally using Vocaroo or Twisted Wave .   Students can submit an image, PDF or even a Google Drawing to show the answer to a higher level question that involves creation and design. Students can submit a Google Doc , Spreadsheet or Presentation  which makes it simple to integrate the Google Suite. Students can submit a video file as well. So if students have a video they have saved in MP4 format, they can submit that video in a Google Form. 

Focus on Online Assessments . . . I'm On It!

Today's  post is about updates, tools or sites that I found interesting as I was searching the web.  Perhaps you will find something of interest to you or your students.  Check these out. #1 Google Forms is getting an update and it looks pretty sweet! The new icon is purple . Read all about it here . #2 Salaries in Real Time How many hours do you need to work in order to buy a burger? Check out this interesting site : 11 minutes and 5 seconds until my next burger. :) #3 Biteable - a simple video animation maker This looks like a very useful tool for creating a tutorial or a visually animated infographic.  #4 2048 Game -  I often spend time in study hall or in the lunch room to see what students are choosing to do on their Chromebooks during their free time.  This tile  game has become quite popular among our high school students. The game is simple, move like numbers together to add the tiles up from 2 - 4 - 8 -16 -32...

This week our students have been working on reader's theater projects to perform at our first ever MPES Reading Night.  Since we are spending quite a bit of class time on this project, the students will be assessed on their work. So I decided to make a rubric to make assessing the project manageable.  To do this, I used a Google Form.  It looks like this: Here is how I made this rubric: After I made the first question "Name", I then created the second question using the choice "Grid".  I then chose my criteria for the rows and my scale for the columns.   One other thing I did was to mark all of the choices at the bottom of my Google Form.   This allows me to choose to submit another response directly after scoring one student.  I can also quickly edit my response or see the previous responses.   If you are planning to use a rubric to score an assignment or project, I highly recommend using Google F...

This past week my reading group read a fictional story about some students taking a field trip to Niagara Falls.  On Friday we had finished the story and had a little extra time, so here is what we did.  I think you'll find this really cool. We decided to go on a Virtual Field Trip which would be planned by our reading group.  Each student searched the Internet for a place to take us on our Virtual Field trip.  They read a little about their special place and then found an image to send to me via a Google Form.   Once I received their URL in the Google Form Spreadsheet, I copied and pasted the URL address into a Web 2.0 tool called Voicethread.  The students then went to Voicethread to record some information about their special place.  They could record with their webcam, with an audio recording or with text.  It is quite interesting to find that my students do not like to record themselves using their webcams.  They much prefe...

A year ago, I shared how to create and use Google Forms.  Click here , and here to see the old posts. Today, I am sharing a site that offers Google Forms that have been created for you to copy and use with your students.  These come from Tom Barrett's Edtech blog.  Some forms may not be exactly what you want, but once you make a copy of the form, you can adjust the questions to suit your needs.  At the bottom of the blog is a Google Presentation on ways to use Google Forms in your classroom. Click here