Mustang “Badges”

Digital badges are an indicator of accomplishment, skill, quality or interest.  The MacArthur foundation defines a digital badges as “a validated indicator of accomplishment, skill, quality or interest,” designed to organize evidence of both formal and informal learning, from within traditional higher education and without.  Each earned badge represents a student’s effort, persistence, and achievement in the learning process.

Here are a couple examples of “Mustang Badges” you can pass out to your students.  They’re all shared with you… located in the shared “Templates for Google Apps” folder.

Using the “Mask” Tool in Google Draw

Take a picture (any picture!) -- I put a landscape picture of flowers in my drawing.

Select picture, then click on arrow next to “crop”

Select one of the shapes… and…

(Hint: You can use this when you’re creating your logos!)

Comic Strips with Photos and Google Draw, and Google Slides

Take your photos and insert into Google Draw. Use a “text bubble” to add captions. Save as .jpg or .png files and insert into Google Slides.  

You could take historical photos and have students create a "comic book" of, say, the Civil War... or Have them illustrate Romeo and Juliet. Lots of possiblities!!!

Here are a couple examples!

Print a Google Doc as a Booklet

(Thanks to Phil Ballard - Drive Bunny)

Take a Google doc and download as a .pdf file. Open in the free Adobe Reader.

When you do a view this is what you see:

Select Print, then select Booklet.

Now when you print, you'll have a true booklet!

Work Rules! (Laszlo Bock)

from Google's Senior VP of People Operations, Laszlo Bock

http://www.slideshare.net/lxbock/work-rules-48029695

And view Laszlo's keynote speech from Google's Education On Air here: https://educationonair.withgoogle.com/live/2015-may/watch/keynote/ba5981 

20% Time

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin highlighted the idea in their 2004 IPO letter:

"We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google," they wrote. "This empowers them to be more creative and innovative. Many of our significant advances have happened in this manner."  

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-20-percent-time-policy-2015-4#ixzz3a1R4Kdub

How can this apply to education?  Here's an article called "Inspire Drive, Creativity in the Classroom with 20-Time."  

Some excerpts:

 The latest in education is asking us to teach our students to create their own questions, do their own research, and form their own conclusions with their learning.The world is a collaborative, communicative place and it is the world of online tools that has made it this way.  Our students' workplaces will be places with teams at tables, not individuals in cubicles. 

One way to teach autonomy that is quickly catching fire throughout education is the concept of 20-Time.  The concept is simple.  Allow students 20% of class time, or one day a week, to work on and explore one topic of their choice.

This is a great place to find inspriation, templates and more.  
http://www.20timeineducation.com/home 

YouTube Channels for Education Database

Check out this database of YouTube channels for education. This is a spreadsheet of many disciplines.

Click on the tab (e.g., "Math"). From there, you will see a list of channels.

Here's the link for the database: 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/tg0yuaEEC2gHlAgFIsJPXxw/htmlview?pli=1# 

Crowdsource your class! (Using Google Sheets)

Start out with a blank presentation. If you have 21 students in your class, create 21 blank slides (22 if you count the title!).  Select your share settings to anyone with a link. Share out that link with your students.  Assign each student a slide number.

Give each student a topic of the unit you’re studying. Tell them they have 15 minutes to gather information from the internet. (Facts, short videos, images, diagrams, etc.).

Now you have a study guide for everyone in the class in 15 minutes!

SAMR and Google

http://elearninginfographics.com/google-apps-samr-framework-infographic/

Dansville's 1:1 Chromebook Initiative

In September 2014, every student in grades 3 through 12 were issued their own chromebook. This was the culmination of two years of planning and training.  Below are some pictures from delivery of the CBs and the first day of distribution.

  

  

    

 

  

Acer C720 and the sleeves are from Belkin

Bill T. Jones Performing

Bill T. Jones, choreographer and dancer. Bill is co-founder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company.

Bill was a teenager a few houses down from me in Springwater.  He's an awesome talent!  Bill was on the cover of Time magazine in 1994, and was one of the five recipients for the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors.

Click here and see him perform at TED2015.

http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_t_jones_the_dancer_the_singer_the_cellist_and_a_moment_of_creative_magic#t-228945

NYSCATE Google Camp coming to Dansville!

http://www.nyscate.org/conferences.cfm?subpage=749

2-minute tutorial on creating a logo in Google Draw

G.E.T.T.: Girls Empowered Through Technology

In case you haven't heard, we're hosting a girls summer computer camp this summer. There will be two sessions (one in July and one in August) for girls entering grades 5-8.  We will learn to code, use robotics and programming.

As of today, we have almost FIFTY girls signed up and we have some high school girls that will volunteer to become mentors.

The camp is free to the girls. We have secured grants and donations that will cover all expenses including a t-shirt with their logo on it.

If you want any more information let us know!

Google Pictures

Starting May 5, 2015, Google Apps for Education accounts should start to receive the recently announced Google Photos in their Google Drive for iOS, Android, the web. Now teachers and students can easily back up their photos and videos to Drive! Read on for an explanation of this new feature and some practical classroom uses.

Read how here: http://technocation.blogspot.com/2015/05/googlephotosingafe.html?m=1

Lessons or Episodes?

An interesting thougth from one of the keynote speakers (Jim Sill) from at the Google Summer in Guilderland last weekend. He suggests changing the word "lessons" to "episodes." He says that episodes suggest that it's "to be continued."

He also talked about creating "FOMO" in your classroom: the fear of missing out.

Jim Sill: http://www.mistersill.com/Home

What Do You Call These?

The three lines are sometimes called "hamburger" or "hotdog" icon

This is sometimes called the "waffle"

But what do YOU call them?

Organize Your Extensions

Extensity: Quickly enable/disable Chrome extensions.

Tired of having too many extensions in your toolbar? 

Extensity is a great tool for quickly enabling and disabling extensions... turn then on when you need them and then turn them off if you don't.

Public Domain

The Public Domain Project:

Download thousands of historical medial files for your projects.

Completely free! Made available by Pond5.
http://www.pond5.com/free 

The 4 Stages of Teacher Confidence in the Use of Technology

100 Chrome Extensions That You Should Install

From LifeHack: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/100-chrome-extensions-that-you-should-install.html?utm_content=buffer0ee7c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Listed are over 100 extensions that are categorized and awesome!

Among my favorites (that I didn't know were there!):

• Always Clear Downloads: A Google Chrome Extension to always clear the downloads list of all completed downloads.
• Awesome New Tab Page: create a useful start page for your Google Chrome browser