LC21
Supporting 21st Century Classrooms in La Canada
WAIT!!! Before you start your next class project with WEEBLY!!!
I love Weebly, and you probably do too. You have your class website on Weebly. Great. Don't change a thing.
But if you're having students create project websites, Weebly can sometimes be complicated, and you can spend too much time teaching the tech and not the content.
The NEW Google Sites is here, and it's been thoroughly reinvented. It looks and feels like the Google Apps we know, and you can embed Docs, Slides, Sheets, Calendars, images---whatever from Google Drive and web. Best of all, students can publish sites that are only viewable to certain people like teachers, friends and family. So, unlike Weebly, published sites are not automatically public for the world to see. And sometimes that's just fine.
Let me know if you're ready to dive in, or just test the waters. I can help you learn the new Sites, work with you to design a tech-enhanced lesson, or I can come in before your next website project and teach your students how to use Sites.
Make the Most of Revision History with DRAFTBACK
Draftback is a tool that takes that revision history and animates it into a video that you can watch to see how students attack writing challenges.
Learn about how to use it in your classroom.
Think about how you could use this:
- Have students evaluate their own editing and revising.
- Modeling how you edit and revise your own work.
- Reviewing the work that all students contributed to a Doc.
How else would you use this? Leave a comment below and let us know!
Keep Track of Communication with Parents
I put together a Google Form to help me keep track of student concerns, who I spoke with, and how it was resolved. (See below.) All I have to do is quickly enter a few bits of information, and it's all collected onto one spreadsheet. No more lost emails!
- Student Name
- Parent Name
- Parent Phone
- Parent Email
- Who Initiated?
- Reason for Contact
- Comments
- Resolved?
- Followup Required?
- Date of Followup
Unlike how we traditionally use Forms for public surveys, this doesn't need to be shared with anyone: you're collecting this data for yourself. Check it out here. Let me know if you'd like me to share a copy with you!
360° PD Continues at LCUSD!
We've had a number of successful parent tech academies, with more to come. We're in the planning phases of our tech trainings for next summer (some great stuff in store--stay tuned!), and we're in the season of Tech PowerUps. We've recently held successful tech PowerUp trainings for our office staff, our paraprofessionals, and our special educators, speech and language specialists, occupational therapists, and physical therapists.
When we're all Powered Up, the students win!
Lending Library: 50 Things You Can Do with Google Classroom by Alice Keeler
I have a copy of Alice Keeler's "50 Things You Can Do with Google Classroom" that I'd love to let you borrow. Email me and I'll deliver it to you!