My Flashcard Preference--StudyStack!

I just wanted to take a minute to give a shout out to a website I love to use for study review for my students. It seems every list of online tools seems to include Quizlet, which is a good tool. I've used it, too. But, my students really prefer StudyStack and here's why:

1. More options for interacting with the cards. Quizlet has only two games and a test module. StudyStack has test, quiz, matching, crossword, hangman, unscramble, chopped and more! There's lots of options.
2. Android app is out now! They plan to release an iOS one soon. But, you don't need an app to use it. It runs just fine in the browser.

Here are a few screenshots. My students love the Hungry Bug game (it gets hard because your bug grows as you answer correctly and the bug cannot run into the sides, into himself, or into the wrong answer!). 

Matching:

Chopped:

So, just sharing. It's a great resource. And, if you want to see, my StudyStacks are located here:
 http://www.studystack.com/users/skindawg

Trying to do "More Google" stuff... #GoogleEdu #teachertools

This summer, I received my Google Certified Educator level 1 certification. As I am working on level 2 now, I am trying to incorporate more "Google things" into my curriculum, either for students or as tools for myself. I saw the other day where someone used a Google Form to collect student submissions for online work (genius!); they post their email, name, URL of project, and comments or a reflection, whatever you need into a simple Google Form so the teacher doesn't have to check emails or have them write down the info.

My students had already uploaded work for grading to SchoolTube, an online video hosting site, in my Multimedia class. And, I was in the middle of moderating their submissions when I wondered if I could just enter their scores and feedback on a Google Sheet and maybe somehow email that information to them. Ideally, I would have had them do the hard work for me and enter in a form, but it was too late for that, so I just typed in their names, plugged in their student emails (only 20 kids so I looked them up quickly), put a Score column and a Notes column and graded away. Then, I hoped I'd find a solution.

I've used Flubaroo before, but I couldn't easily figure out how to mail my score and notes through that. And, after tweeting to Alice Keeler (@alicekeeler), a Google guru, I figured I'd take her advice and try Yet Another Mail Merge, another Google plug-in. Mind you, I don't really read instructions much, so I went poking away trying to figure it out.

My thoughts:

First, get into Gmail and type an email that has "mostly" what you want to say. Mine wasn't fancy. I put the assignment name and a box that said Score and Notes/Feedback. Then, I put my name and a smiley.  I didn't send the email from Gmail; it was just a "draft" in my Gmail.  Oh, and you had to put those double chevrons on either side of the "field names" from your Google Sheet. So, I put <<Score>> and <<Notes>> on there where I needed that information merged (like a Word mail merge, mostly). Fortunately, I picked a YAMM template and modified it and it had a note about that. Score.

Second, I went back to the other tab where my Google Sheet was and added the add-in for this mail merge thingy. It popped up and I had to allow some stuff. Then, it was pretty self-explanatory. I picked my "draft" from the list and put the return email and such. I added myself to the spreadsheet before I did this so I could see what the email would look like.

Here is what my students received (of course, mine is perfect, but they had much more detailed feedback on what was missing or needed improvement):

This worked great! Next time, I'll have them enter their info so I don't have to do all the work (or maybe I'll just duplicate this Sheet and use it again). You are limited to 100 emails per day on this YAMM plug-in, but I have so many different classes I teach that none of my classes are more than 50 kids, so as long as I only do one class in a day, I'm good.

I have student portfolios for another class where they submit work, so this might be another easy way to collect direct URLs for those and to easily grade those projects. I know there are other plug-ins that are rubric based, so maybe that will be my next challenge.

Anyway, hope this helps someone! :)

Flubaroo New Thing! Cool Google Stuff! #flubaroo

I've used Google Forms and graded with Flubaroo many times. However, I hadn't used it in the last year due to our school adopting My Big Campus. But, My Big Campus is going away and thus, I am stuck transitioning to other things this year.

So, back to trusty Google Forms I went! Of course, you can't have multiple versions of exams or shuffle responses and stuff like that, but that's okay. My most excited moment today was realizing Flubaroo had updated some things and added AutoGrade. And the best thing? It emails students their scores as they finish! WHAT?!  I hated waiting until everyone was finished to be able to tabulate grades.

I did find a nice blog of theirs that tells about some of the updates (which apparently happened in December, oops!). It's here--> http://www.flubaroo.com/blog

Other fancy changes include setting your email as the return address, changing what your "pass" score is (defaults to 70% and highlights the kiddos that don't do that well), and one that I am sure I will use SOON, which is a new feature that came out in July called "Grade By Hand" that you can set in the grading options so you can very easily look at the questions you want to hand grade, assign a value, AND enter notes for the student that will be emailed back. I'm seriously giddy right now.

The email they get looks something like this and you can choose (as always) to have the answers sent with it if you want them to be able to study. I like to use it for quizzes prior to a "big test" in my class.

So, just sharing! I love Google Forms!

Found a Cool HTML Tool for Web Design Class! #webdesignclass #freestuff

Today, on my prep hour, I was looking for an HTML playground website to use in my class and ran across a cool online tool called LiveWeave. It's got some Dreamweaver-like features but also a collaborative element (I hope to try that out soon!). Check out my short webcast! :)

Pre-Tests and Student Growth Focus

Ah, student growth. We, as teachers, will be evaluated based on this next year in Missouri.  But, our school district is having us give a full course pre-test now  (this year) so we can track student growth from beginning to end for practice. In some classes, like my Microsoft Office class, I do pre-test by application just to see if there are things everyone always knows. However, my advanced tech classes like Multimedia, Web Design, and Photoshop are a different story. Unless someone just happens to be a dabbler or have a parent who uses one of the programs, most students start with pretty much no requisite knowledge. So, having them do a "final project" now would just be a waste of time.

Thus, I will have to administer objective pre- and post- tests for those courses (the post being the final exam or a test right before the final). I have those, though I also include other parts in my final exams that I will just not include in the pre-test. We have to track data on the "apples to apples" questions and keep a spreadsheet showing student growth from pre- to post- test. FUN! :)

Anyway, I remembered looking at a program (an app, actually) called ZipGrade last summer. ZipGrade turns your phone or tablet into an optical grading machine similar to a Scantron. It reads free-to-download answer sheets. So, I pulled out my phone and logged into the ZipGrade Cloud (had to sign up for that part) and created an answer key to the 50 question exam based on last year's final exam key (easy, just click the bubbles!). Then, I printed an answer sheet and bubbled randomly.  **Disclaimer: Yes, I realize they make scantron machines, but the computer ours is hooked to in the lounge doesn't work so you can't get data from it anyway. Oh, and in 18 years, I've never been trained. :) ha ha

I had to go in and create a fictional student to take my test and assign an ID. However, you can import CSV data (which is what I will do when rosters are final and I give the test) with names.

What I like about ZipGrade is that you can easily log into it online and you can see data analysis (how many got each question right and most " alternate answered" of the wrong distractor). Here's a few screenshots. You can see I scanned the same test twice, meaning the student can take it again and you will see it as another attempt.

So, the first 100 scans are free and after that, you'd have to pay. But, it's $6.99/yr. that's not too shabby. :)  And, you can print results (as PDF) from the program. One option is "strip report" which is for you to give students and it gives their scores AND their incorrect answers! And, you can also print (if you needed to) a PDF that shows each student on an individual page with their actual scanned test and the answer key. 

Here's a short video showing what the app looks like. They have a Google Play app (Android) and an iOS app for the Apple folks. 

Oh, and bonus! In trying to show you a video about how to do this, I learned about an app for Android called Mobizen, which I used to record the screen demo. #win #love2learn

My thoughts on Microsoft Teacher Academy... #freepd

Less than a week ago, Microsoft announced a few online learning options for teachers, which they have termed "Microsoft Teacher Academy." I have been learning Microsoft OneNote using the online course called Teacher Academy--The Ultimate Collaboration Tool: An Introduction to OneNote.  It's taken many hours to work through it all, so I've been working about an hour or so each day to try to complete it. It's a bit dry, but he does build in some little assessments along the way and asks questions to make sure you pick up the important points. I recommend frequent breaks. :)

Before you read all this, know this. If your school uses Office 365, then OneNote is awesome and you will find the last few modules of this to be super helpful. I didn't know that before I did all this work.

I've had OneNote on just about every device and computer I've had in the past few years, but I'll be honest that I haven't used it. I am a big Evernote user, and they do seem a bit similar. But, I typically just use Evernote to save things when I am on my phone so I can review them later on my computer.

It starts off a bit slow. I did learn some cool things regarding digital notebooks (which can be saved and shared on OneDrive) and the search features. And, I found it cool that is you paste information from the web that it includes the source URL. That's handy.  But, if you are interested, I'd suggest you go to unit 5, Delivering Curriculum with OneNote. That's a pretty neat unit and I learned some ideas for perhaps creating unit plans and such for my classes. I loved embedding audio or having students record audio clips and saving them to the OneNote document and sharing the document with the teacher for assessment purposes.

The neatest thing I learned (Module 6) was about the OneNote Class Notebook (app) feature.  I loved how you can set up the student sections automatically and that each student gets their own private space in addition to a collaborative space. There is also a content library for teachers to store "read-only" information as well.

I teach an Advanced Computer Applications (dual credit MS Office) class this year. I thought I might try this until...

wait for it....

Apparently you have to have Office 365 for your school to use the cool class notebook! I tried many different ways to make it work (thinking it would maybe be something in the cloud that I wouldn't have to download and downloading from different places) but I couldn't figure it out. How sad. We are still running Office 2013 Pro at the school. Some of their ideas for staff notebooks was cool, too, and a bit nicer than just sharing resources on the "shared drive" we can only access at school.

I'll still probably use regular OneNote in the class (just not the Class Notebook option) but won't be able to micro-manage their notebooks unless I have them share part of it with me. That sure would have been handy.  But, I might do a small pilot in the one section of Adv CA I have in the fall (I have 3 sections in the Spring).

My brain is so full of stuff from this summer! Between the book studies and all the online stuff, I just don't know where to start! Anyone else feeling that way?

Have a great Saturday!

Getting Ready...Articles with Shady Stuff for Kids

Well, I got my class numbers today. I have four courses this semester-- Adobe Photoshop, Web Design, Multimedia/Digital Video, and Advanced Computer Applications (dual credit MS Office). Only one class is totally full (which is awesome since I had a computer that wouldn't turn on after sitting all summer!) and some are around 20, which is most ideal for my computer classes.

Anyway, as I was preparing an activity for my Photoshop classes on Photoshop and the media, I realized a common problem: the article had some questionable content. There were some screenshots that included profanity and some ladies in lingerie (and I realize they probably see all of this in magazines and online daily, but I don't want any parents up here angry at me!). So, I needed to get those off of there!

One of my Google Chrome extensions that I use to generate a PDF file (often blogs are blocked at my school by the firewall so I have to PDF articles frequently so students can read offline) is called Print Friendly & PDF.  I have only used the extension, but I read that you can create a shortcut button and use it in other browsers as well (so I tried creating the link on the Favorites bar in IE and it worked like a charm).

I created a short video that shows you the steps and just how easy this is to use. So, take a look! (click bottom right corner to enlarge screen)

Hope this helps someone. Back to work!

In case you are interested, here's my Google Hangout recording from EdCamp Global on several Google Chrome extensions.