Education technology and game-based learning resources, tool tips, innovative pedagogical musings, and general "thinkalouds" of a Digital Learning Consultant. Follow my educational journey on Instagram, X , Threads and Bluesky @watsonedtech, my Facebook Page (facebook.com/edtechelixirs), and the blog hashtag #edtechelixirs. Note that opinions are mine alone, and reviews/mentions of edtech products do not qualify as an endorsement. Subscribe to the blog at bit.ly/signupedtechelixirs.
A teacher today at East Middle began an interesting discussion with me. She has students that are more comfortable with handwritten notes. What would be an easy way to capture them and save them to their Google Drive? We first briefly began with an "old school" way of doing so, and likely the best way for resolution and image quality -- find a desktop computer, use a scanner to scan the notes, then take the resulting file and get it into their Google Drive via email, a thumb drive, etc. However, this would not only be time and resource consuming, but is a great example of letting "perfect be the enemy of good." Because of our 1:1 Chromebooks for middle and high school, a student has a more than adequate way of capturing these notes right at their fingertips. It also encourages blended learning - a mix of the analog and the digital.
In order to take a picture with the Chromebook, go to the magnifying glass icon in lower left, click “All Apps,” and find Camera. (If you want, you can drag and pin the icon to the bottom tray for a short cut in the future.)
Take your picture with the webcam. You can add filters if you like, set a timer, or take multishots in a row. You might want to turn the mirroring off, especially if taking a picture of text.
If you want to find and use the picture afterward, access the gallery by going to Camera and click on the stacked photo icon on the right. Choose the picture you want to use, then “Save to Disk” option in lower right. Name it and put it in your Drive.
When you want to take a snapshot while in the middle of a Google Doc, go to Insert > Image > Take a Snapshot. The first time you do this, you will need to give permissions for the Chromebook to access your webcam and built in microphone. The snapshot can now be taken and instantly inserted. (Note: this can be done not only on a Chromebook, but any laptop/desktop computer with a webcam.)
There are other ways the Chromebook's camera could be utilized. Here's some examples:
Younger students who are pre-literate could still capture and share their work, such as drawings.
Math students of all ages can "show their work" as both proof of their effort as well as a window into their critical thinking, so that it may be assessed by their teacher.
Students can preserve proof of analog projects (such as a diorama) for digital portfolios.
On non-traditional instructional days or homework, students could be asked to take a selfie along with a code word (given by the teacher at the appropriate time) written on a piece of paper. This will serve as a "check in" that students followed directions and were truly present for their work.
Thanks to websites like QR Code Generator, you can scan QR codes without using a phone or installing a program.
How are you using the Chromebook's camera? Tell us in the Comments below.
Last Wednesday, we had our second annual Edtech Share Fair. In terms of sheer numbers, we were successful: nearly double the presenters and attendees. We also had a large contingent of people outside of our district visit; educators from six different districts got tickets, and we even had a U of L professor bring his entire class of students!
Ashley Sutter from our local newspaper the Sentinel News did a story on the Share Fair, which you can read here.
Last but not least, I did a Storify which contains a select sample of the tweets using hashtag #SCsharefair:
Special thanks to all of our presenters and helpers, as well as all those that attended!
Before I get into today's tool, I want to say what an educational and inspirational time I had at KySTE 2016 a few weeks ago! Not only because the sessions were good as always, but it is always great to see my other educational technology peeps. Special congratulations to Marty Park for his "Making IT Happen" award and Heidi Neltner for being recognized as this year's "Outstanding Teacher." (Is it a coincidence that I interviewed her mere months before Heidi won? Did her brilliant words tip the judges in her favor? We will have to open an X File and investigate; the truth is out there.)
Today's tool came out of a need requested by teachers with our Chromebooks. The ability to do annotation is important to help students take ownership of text, as well as capturing and sharing their thinking. The trouble is finding a cloud based tool that does this, since you can't download programs on a Chromebook. A few teachers mentioned Kami, and once I played around with it, I was very pleased. It is free, fairly easy to use, and because you can save annotated files to your Google Drive, sharing your annotations or reviewing your previous notes is a cinch. (Side note: Kami was formerly known as Notable, if you are a previous user of the tool.)
How does it work? You first must register. Thankfully (especially for students!), you can use your existing Google account to log in. There is also a Chrome browser App and Extension available to install if you like, which would allow you to annotate offline!
As noted previously, Kami is free, but by paying an upgrade fee you can get some premium features, starting with removing ads and autosaving to your Drive. The custom pricing available for schools allows for the inserting of shapes, audio annotations, collaboration among users, and text to speech capabilities. As a free user I can't attest to these bonus features, but I can definitely see their value.
Once logged in, you can import several different types of files from various locations, including straight from your Google Drive, Box, or Dropbox accounts.
Once you bring in a file (like a Google Doc or a PDF), your annotation tools will appear in a sidebar to the left. Two of the buttons (shapes and document signatures) are part of the Premium upgrades.
Various Kami tools in action. "Wow!" in red shows the drawing tool. "This is text" in purple is the text tool. The orange dot is part of the comment tool (linked to box on the right). Strikethrough, highlight and underline are also shown.
After you make your annotations, you click on the download icon in the upper right and choose how to Export the file. Note that you can export to your computer, or directly into your Google Drive.
Exporting as a "PDF With Annotations" is probably your best bet.
And that's it! Once you get used to navigating the site, Kami can become a very versatile annotation tool for students.
How could you use it? Annotation, obviously. But if the exported PDFs are put in a shared folder with the teacher and/or other students, the ability for quick feedback (from teachers and peers) would make Kami invaluable.
Downsides? The drawing tool is awkward with a mouse or trackpad; with a touchscreen and a stylus, it would be better. That said, the drawing tool has no adjustment of line thickness, so text notes would be better for longer annotations. I wish some of the premium features were freely available for education accounts, but it's hard to complain when most of Kami is free in the first place.
I've yet to come across a cloud based annotation tool that's free and this easy to use with Chromebooks. Give it a try with your students!
Have you and your students used Kami? What did you think? Leave a Comment below.
YouTube is full of incredible videos for education. In its native page, however, it is also full of distractions: ads before the video starts, suggested videos along the right side, and comments below. Potentially, all of these may have inappropriate material, especially when considering elementary students.
Here are two main ways to get around this: using embedded codes, or using an alternative site that shows a "clean" version of the video.
Embedded Codes
When you go to a video on YouTube, go below and click on the Share tab. By default, the first tab (also labelled Share) is shown first, which has a URL. For most instances, copying and pasting this is fine, but the URL will bring you to the "official" YouTube page in all its glory...and distractions.
Instead, click Share and then click Embed:
Copy and paste this code. If you use Schoology, the same place you would paste the URL for the video will also accept this embed code. The difference for the student is that the video will play inside of Schoology and not launch to a new page or tab outside of it. Also, no ad will play at the beginning, and since you are only seeing the video, you will not see the comments or the videos alongside yours.
*If you want another level of control, you can also turn off the suggested videos at the end of playing the video. (This means the only thing a students will see at the end is a chance to replay the video.)
In your "Embed" tab as shown above, click on "Show More":
Next, uncheckmark the first box for "Show suggested videos after the video finishes":
The embed code will now be altered to reflect this change. Copy the embed code as before and paste it into Schoology.
Alternative Sites for Viewing
Another option for a "cleaner" interface is to copy the YouTube video's URL and paste it in another site. There are multiple options on the Web where you can watch the YouTube video in the same way as above: no ads, no comments, no suggested videos. Two that I would recommend is View Pure (and thanks to Donnie Piercey for his blog entry about it!) and Safeshare.TV. Once you paste the original YouTube URL in these sites, a new URL is generated. This View Pure or Safeshare link is the one you want to copy and paste into Schoology, your email, etc. When a student clicks it, they will be taken to this clean interface version.
There is an important caveat for both of these options, however. When either embedding or filtering, YouTube will not allow a site or system to block the YouTube logo in the lower right of the video frame. If a student clicks on it, a new tab/page will open that is the video's original page on YouTube.
For a more detailed video on both of these options, please view below.
*Update 2/25/16: I added the directions for going to "Show More" and turning off the suggested videos at the end. Thank you Yasmine Fleming for the tip!
Just a short post to announce that the FREE tickets to our second annual Edtech Share Fair are available now! (You can read about Edtech Share Fair 2015 here.) The event is Wednesday, March 23, 4:00 to 5:30 pm EST, and is open to educators both inside and outside of our district. The Edtech Share Fair will be held at Southside Elementary; we will start in the campus's Blair Center and move into the school itself for the presentations.
Worksheets are a nasty, nasty word in education. Fair or not, they epitomize the "one size fits all" approach to mindlessly giving out the same photocopied work, year after year after year. However, like other maligned educational words and phrases that have fallen out of fashion (like "direct instruction"), we must be careful not to throw out a good tool that has been used poorly in the past . . . especially if they get a twenty-first century upgrade.
Which brings us to the focus of this entry: Wizer! (That's pronounced like "wiser," as in "I hope to become wiser in integrated technology as the years go on.") These self-described "blended worksheets" can become another powerful formative assessment for your digital classroom, despite the pedigree of the dreaded W word.
How does it work? You need an account to either make or take Wizer worksheets, but registration is free and you can even use your Google account as a sign in. (GAFE users, take note!) Once logged in, look in the upper left of the page to access your previously created worksheets or to create a new one.
Once you choose to create a new worksheet, you must choose a theme. (Like Google Forms in the beginning, there are a narrow amount of choices with some seasonal influences - I saw a Valentine related choice, for example - but you should be able to find enough variety.) Next, you will see various ways of editing the worksheet at the top and right side. At the top, you can indicate the grade level of the work or tag it with indicators. Down the right side, you can save the worksheet as you go (there doesn't appear to be an auto-save), preview what it will look like to students, change the cover photo, and last but not least, edit the color and font of the worksheet's title. The wording of the title itself is easy to click and edit, which will automatically give the worksheet its name when you look under "My Worksheets" in the top left.
In the body of the worksheet, you can choose various Tasks. Perhaps by design, the top row of choices are interactive, and the bottom row are more passive/informational. So you can choose from interactive options such as matching, multiple choice, labeling a picture, and open response questions to more passive embedded material such as YouTube videos, pictures or links. Another plus is how simple it is to edit Tasks and change the order of their appearance on the worksheet.
I'm particularly impressed with "Fill On An Image" and "Matching," which among online formative assessments are fairly unique choices.
After the worksheet is completed, you go to the upper right to toggle the Publish button, and now you can "Assign to students." From here, you can create multiple "classes" to assign the same worksheet for the sake of organization (and control turning on or off access class by class). You can provide a link to the worksheet (in an email, a Schoology Assignment/Update Post, etc.) or directly integrate it with Google Classroom.
Note that you can choose to give or not give "Automatic feedback to students."
Once students complete the worksheet, you can go to your worksheet and click on "Assess Answers" in the upper right. Right/wrong answers (like multiple choice) will be automatically graded for you, and you can toggle through student submissions to manually grade Tasks such as open responses or override Wizer if it says a student was incorrect. There is even a space for teacher comments. Once saved, all of this will be available to students when they next log in.
Note that by default, all published worksheets are available in the public "gallery" on the home page of the site, which can be shared or copied to their own account by other users. However, you can make your worksheets private by going under "My Worksheets," finding the worksheet you want to change, clicking the three dots button, and clicking on Make Private.
How could you use it? The beauty of Wizer can be summed up in a sentence: it's a formative assessment that is easy to navigate with Tasks that could be used K-12. If you are worried about the "one size fits all" of old school worksheets, why not make multiple versions and differentiate? (You can copy one of your existing worksheets and edit it accordingly.)
Downsides? Questions are automatically a point per answer; you cannot customize the values. There is no way to search public worksheets (currently, you can only browse the ones shown on the home page), but since worksheets can be tagged when created, I believe this is a feature likely to come down the pike. While already packed with several Task features, I look forward to using other tools in the future such as drawing or audio.
Wizer is getting user input for which Task will be added next.
All in all, Wizer is a great new free online formative assessment that is already impressive. If it continues to grow and improve, this could easily become a favorite in my toolbox.
Be sure to share a Comment below if you've used Wizer already or after you give it a try!
As our area is enfolded into the first major snow event of winter 2016 and we have officially crossed into the second half of the school year, it's giving me a chance to take a breath and reflect on where our district is headed.
When the timetable was moved up on our initiative and we decided to get Chromebooks into the hands of our middle schoolers now instead of in August, there was definite joy in the air! Last week, our deployment went even more smoothly than our high school deployment a few months prior. Although we did it in two nights instead of three, there were few hiccups and we have grown into an efficient edtech delivery system. (One of several lessons learned from the high school deployment: have an info sheet with a bar code prepped for every student to make checkout happen at laser zapping speed.)
It's true that I spent time last year prepping teachers for the 1:1 initiative, and our Digital Learning Team has worked with the middle school staffs in the weeks leading up to the deployment....but still, I was concerned. Would the sped up deployment schedule rattle and dampen the middle school teachers' enthusiasm and tech integration? In short, were they ready?
The short answer is: yes, they are ready...very much so!
The long answer is, teachers all over are jumping in with both feet. Naturally, Google Apps are a popular tool and a powerful partner with Chromebooks. But a pleasant surprise was how many teachers are already wading into Schoology -- learning as they go, learning from their students, and learning from each other. At both East and West Middle Schools, educators are putting their feet on the accelerator and not looking back, whether it's in setting their norms, organizing their class, or applying physics knowledge with online simulations. And this was barely 24 hours after deployment!
But Schoology extends beyond 6-12. Our K-5 educators are also embracing it, even when they struggle with less than ideal 1:1 device penetration or tech consistency. Third Grade teacher Nick Cottrell shares his story in the video below. I love how his student surprised him with a feature he hadn't used himself yet!
Technology integration and digital classroom conversion is not for the timid. Failing is likely, fumbling is typical. But failing forward among the safety net of other enthusiastic practitioners of the teacher arts is the key. I am so glad to be inspired by my colleagues and am invigorated to keep up with them.
