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Brainstorming Race Brainstorming Race is a fun Google add-on where the teacher can give temporary write access to a document. Students can quickly collaborate and generate a brainstorm list. As soon as the time is up, the students can no longer write on the document. The teacher can then highlight the responses and create an instant Google Form so that students can vote on their favorite response. This is a great way to engage in an interactive lecture.  Believe it or not, a developer came up with this idea in collaboration with his/her child. What a great idea! Here is their tutorial if you are interested in an overview .  The only trouble is the time and effort it takes to share the document with the students. You would need a list of usernames to copy and paste when you are ready to share the document to streamline the whole process. Then you would need to figure out how to share the link to the Google Form with them as well. Share to Classroom to the res...

Voice typing in Google Docs! Voice Typing launched in the tools menu in Google Docs earlier this year. It has been widely publicized and rightfully so as it serves as a great asset to any user. Voice typing is simple as you can quickly dictate your thoughts and the text will appear in your Google Doc. I especially like it for creating quick feedback to students in their writing vs. typed responses. It is also handy for students that have a handwritten report and wanted it in a digital format. Students can read their responses aloud while voice typing does all the heavy lifting. 

From iPads to Chromebooks... Next year will be a transition year for my kindergarten through second-grade teachers. We are officially in the phase of transitioning away from iPads in a 1:1 setting. This is quite a transition for me as well as the last four years of my career has been dedicated to the integration of iOS devices and helping/training teachers to do just that.  Our device of choice for kindergarten through second grade will be the Asus Chromebook Flip. The main reason being that it has a touch screen. I am a firm believer that young students will need the touch enabled device in order to efficiently and effectively utilize technology in a 1:1 setting. It will be an exciting year! To help get my teachers geared up for next year, I created a little promotional video.  What to do with all those iPads... Suddenly we have an abundance of second generation iPads on our hands. Most of them we will be turning in as collateral for repairs on our exist...

Let's Hangout! This week's Teacher Tech Tip is dedicated to simplifying the Google Hangout. Many teachers are utilizing this fantastic tool to bridge the distance between colleagues and members of their personal learning network. Getting a number of individuals to participate at the same time can be a bit cumbersome. Who is supposed to initiate the Hangout session? Who has the list of individuals that plan on participating? How can you quickly contact everyone if there is an issue? Using Google Calendar in conjunction with Google Hangouts solves all of those issues.  Whenever you create a calendar event, you can enable a scheduled video Hangout. The scheduler can also invite their colleagues to the event and it will prompt them to indicate whether or not they would like to attend. The entire list resides right there in the details of the event. If someone needs to contact the whole group, you can email the entire participant list with any questions, concerns,...

Like Orange Slice?  Orange Slice is an awesome resource for student feedback. The teacher rubric allows you to quickly build a rubric right within a Google Doc, score it, and return it back to a student with their grade on the document. It even works well with Google Classroom and other LMS products as it automatically changes the document file name with the grade added on it. For more detailed information about using Orange Slice, please check out my earlier post.   There is also a student rubric . This allows the students to share the document with one another, give peer feedback, and allow the teacher to consider the peer feedback in the final grade. This is a great way for students to be a part of the learning process. As they read through a peer's work, they will also consider the same score indicators when revising their own writing.  Like Voice Typing? Voice Typing became a tool built right within Google Docs earlier during the...

Get Your Search On! It was just last week that I had a colleague that was disgruntled about Gmail. He claimed it was just too disorganized to sort through emails. If you had an email that got buried under days and days worth of email, it was difficult to recover. If you search for someone's email address in the search bar, it comes up with every email that they've sent, you've sent, and the emails in which you were both a part of a group email. Refining your search was not very user friendly.  In that little hidden drop-down arrow beside the magnifying glass in your Gmail is list of search refining tools. You can search senders, emails you've sent, folders, according to date, or even if it has attachments. Not sure who sent the email but remember the contents of the message? Try using the 'has the words' option to dig through the actual contents of the email. You can refine it even more if you remember the time span when the message was set. ...

Why a multiple choice question? The question feature in Google Classroom now provides the opportunity to ask a single multiple choice question. I'm not a fan of using multiple choice questions for assessment. I question the accuracy at which they measure learning. I am, however, a huge fan of polling an audience to lead a discussion. This works especially well in the Google Classroom environment as a user can add a video, document, or link to a website along with the question. This would allow the teacher to gather quick data on thoughts and feelings on the subject matter. For this reason, I see a lot of value in the multiple choice option.  Another option would be for a super quick exit slip. I believe the original short-answer question was a better fit for an accurate read of student learning, but if you needed a quick data set for tomorrow's lesson, the single multiple choice question would work.  See it in action I attempted to mak...

Images from soundation.com Podcasts for everyone! Podcasting is an awesome way for students to fine-tune their oral delivery of their learning. I love doing screencasts and presentations in front of the class, but students truly focus on the delivery when all they have to work with is their voice. Students can create a radio broadcast on any topic; what a fun way to do so with the mixture of music and voice. Not long ago I posted about using Soundtrap.com to create podcasts on a Chromebook.  It is a great tool and several teachers have grabbed hold of the concept. However, users under the age of 13 are not permitted to use it with personal accounts. Schools will need to purchase the educational version for students under 13 to participate.  Never fear... Soundation.com is here!  With soundation.com , students can create a free account and create their own podcasts. Students can go to the login screen and use their Google Apps for Education account im...

This Teacher Tech Tip is inspired by Chantell Manahan ! Ever want an email to appear in your Google Calendar? There is a simple and quick way to do just that. Built within Gmail is the option to send emails to your task list. It doesn't really matter what kind of user you are with Google Tasks because you can send the item directly to your Google Calendar. By doing this, you can add a specific date, extra notes, and keep the email hidden away in your Google Calendar. If you need to refer to the email again, you can click on the reminder on your calendar and the related email will be waiting for you there.