Tech In Ten
Tools and Resources for our K-12 Teachers and Staff
Heads Up Tech Savvy Teachers!!
If you need assistance with any of the below items or have another tech item that you would like to implement in your classroom please let us know. We will be back in the office on August 24th but are available by email until then !
Important Updates
New Website
The new district website is now slated to go live in November. Teacher Sites training on the new platform is tentatively scheduled to be held during the October In-Service. Stay tuned for more details…
Student Gmail
Digital Classroom Start Up Guide
Google Contacts and Groups (distribution lists) - The easiest way to correspond with a group of classroom parents, students (gr 7-12) ,grade level colleagues or department colleagues is to create a Google Group for email, ( similar to distribution lists in outlook ) . For a quick refresher click here or watch the video tutorial on the Meet Gmail Website .
Signature Tip - For those that use an email signature please note that Gmail will sometimes ‘trim’ your signature from email replies. To prevent this from happening and to make sure that your signature always displays please do the following ….
From the gear icon (top right hand side), choose settings , scroll to signature section and check the box (below the signature area) 'Insert this signature before quoted text in replies and remove the "--" line that precedes it'.
Google Docs
Reminder … Sharing permissions for students - There have been some changes in the way students can share documents. They can no longer share documents with anyone outside of the Cheltenham domain. If they do need to share a document outside the district they can pass ownership to the teacher. Teachers can still share outside of the Cheltenham domain. Click here for further information.
Teachers should only use their Cheltenham Google Apps accounts for District related classroom content and communications with staff and students.
Drive Organization - Take a look at the following great tips on how to organize your Google Drive , this one is definitely on my beginning of the year to-do list! Google Drive Organization Tips from the Google Gooru.
Google Classroom
Classroom is designed to help teachers create and collect assignments paperlessly, and includes time-saving features like the ability to automatically make a copy of a Google document for each student. It also creates Drive folders for each assignment and for each student to help keep everyone organized. Students can keep track of what’s due on the assignments page and begin working with just a click. Teachers can quickly see who has or hasn't completed the work, and provide direct, real-time feedback and grades right in Classroom.
Below you will find everything you need to get started. Please take a minute to review the information, we think you will see just how easy it is to start your own virtual classroom!
Taking It To The Next Level
Explore Add-ons In Google Apps
Add-ons are tools built by third-party developers. By allowing these tools to work with your apps, you can gain some very useful features and functionality that would not be available with the stand alone app. For example, clipart is built into Microsoft Word but it is missing from Google Docs. Try using the add-on Openclipart. There are over 50,000 images that are free to use in your Google Doc. Here is a great video illustrating how to add this add-on to your Google Docs.
Use Flubaroo To Autograde Quizzes
Flubaroo is another great add-on that we’ve mentioned several times over the past few years. If you are acclimated to using Google Apps in your classroom now, why not consider using Flubaroo for quizzes. Flubaroo helps you deliver your quiz via a Google Form. It then collects the responses from your students and grades them based on the answer key that you provide. Cut and paste the scores into your Gradebook and you are done. We created this video to show you how to do this.
Got Links? Bookmark Them!
Keeping track of all of your internet sites can be a real chore. If you bookmark them in the browser on your teacher desk, you don’t have access to them from home or from another device. Try using Google Bookmarks this year and save yourself all the headaches of trying to remember sites. Each staff member has access to this free bookmarking site simply by having a Cheltenham Google Apps account. Log into your Google account and then head over to https://www.google.com/bookmarks/. At the bottom of the bookmarks page, drag the bookmarklet icon to your bookmarks bar of your browser. Each time you want to save a site, just click on the bookmarklet, add the metadata to tag it and you are done. This site can be accessed from any device that can get you to the internet. This is not the same as bookmarking with your browser.
Create A Syllabus In Google Docs
Try The New Google Photos App
Organize Classroom Docs With Symbaloo
This was the best new idea I came across this summer. Symbaloo lets you create online webmixes of all your favorite sites. Our resources webmix has been on the district website for a few years now. Once you start to accumulate documents, it can be hard to find what you need quickly whether they are stored on your hard drive or in Google Apps. The nice thing about Google Apps is that each document has a sharable link. You may want to consider using Symbaloo to create a webmix with links to all the documents that you and/or your students may need for a particular class. Symbaloo provides you with code that you can then embed on your website or simply link to the site. Special thanks to Travis Towne for sharing this video.
How To Contact Us
We are available to come to your school or classroom.
Email us at dwalker@cheltenham.org and lrock@cheltenham.org
We'd love to hear how you are using technology in your classroom.