Tech Tips
Candor CSD (Volume 1, Issue 6) - April 5, 2017
Happy April & Happy Spring!
Issue #6 of Tech Tips will focus on some quick tips and easy-to-use tools, a deeper dive for those of you who want to step it up a notch, and some Candor-specific tech news!
Quick Tips & Tools
Kiddle - a kid-friendly search engine
Take it for a test drive at kiddle.co
Consolidate your Google Chrome tabs into a list using OneTab
This proves very useful when you have multiple websites you would like to "give" to others in the form of a list, so that they can open them on their own devices or perhaps have them for later. It could be ideal for a classroom setting where multiple websites are needed for a specific day's or week's work online. You can even edit the name of the tab depending on its purpose.
To do this, download and install OneTab from the Chrome Web Store. (Remember, you must be using Chrome to do this). Then, click the OneTab Icon to the right of the omnibox (address / search bar) in Chrome. This will consolidate any open tabs, as shown in the animation below.
Please also see below for a video tutorial on how to use OneTab.
Socrative - a more robust alternative to Kahoot
Are you looking for something where you can control the pace, but want students to have questions on their own device?
Try Socrative!
Socrative allows you to "push" an activity or assessment to your class. When you set up your account, you'll create a room. You can give your students the room name for your class, and push any assessment to that room. Again, the pace of the assessment is controlled by you. Unlike Kahoot, the answer will not necessarily appear as soon as all students answer. You can customize many more options including adding hints, choose whether or not to show the correct answer, and even whether to tell if the student got the correct answer.
Space Race
Space Race is also another option on Socrative in which students can form teams to answer the questions you post. This is done at their own pace, as it is a race! Students can create their own teams or you can assign them.
See the video below for a quick tutorial on using Socrative.
News at Candor CSD
Candor Student Help Desk
The duties of the student help desk associate include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Be available during free periods to assist students and teachers with troubleshooting issues with their school and possibly personal computer/phones.
- Help teachers and students connect devices to classroom audio visual equipment.
- Create video tutorials for web tools and create a help desk website.
- Review apps for Candor Chrome Web Store.
- Repair hardware, including student Chromebooks.
- Lead teacher and student technology training.
- Report networking issues.
- Suggest appropriate tools for students to use to complete class projects.
- Help maintain the Maker Space in the LMC.
- Support digital citizenship initiatives.
- Unbox and enroll Chromebooks (possibly over the summer months).
- Provide feedback to faculty and administration about student experiences with technology in the building.
Interviews will be conducted in early to mid-April. Thank you for your support with this initiative!
What's that in my ceiling!?
Over the past month, contractors have been installing speakers and control panel spaces in the drop ceiling tiles / panels. These metallic enclosures feature an outlet as well as a metal shelf in many of the units. If you have been wondering what they are, they will be used to house a control panel for our new classroom audio / video setup. At the completion of the instructional technology portion of the building project, each instructional space will have a new multimedia setup including an ultra-short throw, touch sensitive projector, as well as peripheral inputs for devices such as a laptop computer. The "control panel" will serve as an intermediary to direct "traffic" to where it needs to go. For example, if you'd like to project your laptop screen for one part of your class, but then would like to switch the input to another video or audio source, you can use the control panel to do that. Also installed were two JBL speakers for audio output.
This is an exciting overhaul to our instructional technology environment and these updates will continue throughout the summer months.
If you are interested, please see below for pictures of what the projector setup will look like (approximately). You can also visit Ben Taylor's or Amy Kelsey's classrooms to see what the ultra-short throw projector setup will look like.
Deeper Dive: Creating & Integrating Hyper Docs
HyperDocs in the Classroom
A HyperDoc is a document that contains some sort of interactive material. In education, a HyperDoc is generally a document that contains a digital lesson or resources for our students.
These resources can be created for self-guided lessons or review, but can also be used to "package together" an entire lesson that can be completed in class and guided by the teacher.
Example of a HyperDoc
The example that I'd like to share is one that focuses more on the former: creating resources for students to work and study independently.
This example uses Quizlet, a tool for mastering sets of new information, such as vocabulary words or formulas. In my Spanish classes, all of the vocabulary words for each unit are uploaded to Quizlet. Students have been added to my classes, but sometimes have a hard time finding the sets. For this reason, I created a HyperDoc that contains a link to ALL of the Quizlet flashcard sets for each unit of study throughout the school year. You can check it out by clicking here or by looking at the screenshot below.
If a student wanted to work on words 1-19 in Unit 4, for example, they would scroll down to that Unit (Unidad) and select the range they want to work on. This would bring up a link which would take them to Quizlet, where they could play various review games or even take a mock vocabulary test.
To create a HyperDoc like this, you will have to link your content to other resources on the internet. Here's the process from start to finish. It's easiest if you do this in Google Docs, but it really can be done in any software where you can publish your work.
- Create a new Google Doc.
- In your document, type the text or insert the image(s) you would like to link to another place online.
- Open a new tab (Ctrl + T), and go to the resource that you'd like to link to.
- Copy (Ctrl + C) the URL of that resource - it's easiest if you just copy directly from the omnibox / address bar.
- Once that text or image has been inserted into the doc, either click the image or highlight the text you want linked, and then hold Ctrl + K.
- Paste the URL of that resource into the box to the right of Link.
- Click Apply.
You're done! Repeat as necessary until you've got a product that contains all of the links you'd like to add.
If you'd like to share this doc with others, you've got a few options:
1. Click the SHARE button and specify your recipients.
2. Publish the doc to the web by clicking File > Publish to the web... and specifying your settings.
3. Click the SHARE button and then Get Shareable Link. Be sure to change the permissions of the file accordingly so that the ones you want to grant access to have it (e.g.: Only Candor Central School users, anyone on the web, etc.) as well as the actions they can take on the doc (I recommend view only). Then share out this link as you see fit.
Going deeper - An entire LESSON using HyperDocs
At Google's Edu on Air conference in December 2016, the teachers who coined the idea of a HyperDoc actually led a session on creating an entire lesson using them! Check out that video here if you're interested.
If you have any questions, or would like help in creating a HyperDocs lesson, please feel free to sign out a time to work with Ben by clicking here.
Candor CSD Tech Tips
Email: techtips@candorcs.org
Website: www.candorcsd.org
Location: 1 Academy Street, Candor, NY, United States
Phone: (607) 444-5707
Twitter: @senortaylor2