Reeve EdTech Tips

It happens to all of us -- the test, quiz, or activity we planned for the  day -before-vacation  finishes 20 minutes early , and we're stuck with a bunch of energetic teenagers  hopped up on candy canes and Hershey kisses .  Never fear! I've got stuff for you to  entertain the class  with, to keep them happy and manageable! 12   Days  Gift Hunt  - what does it cost to give the gifts of the  12   Days  of Christmas song? A Brief History of Santa Claus  - cute 4 min video on how the modern Santa came to be SpinTheDreidel.com  - learn how to play, and then play online! Design a Gingerbread House  - virtual Gingerbread houses (but turn off the music!) Holiday Hangman  - virtual hangman with Holiday words (come to think of it, you probably don't really need technology for this....) Google Santa Tracker  - loads of games, activities, and cute stuff! I hope everyone has a great last  day  before break, an fun and restful vacation, and a Happy New Year! 

Google Forms now gives teachers the ability to create self-grading quizzes. You enter the questions and the answer key, students take the quiz online, and bam! Instant assessment! Go to your Google Drive Click the blue NEW button , hover over More > and then choose Google Forms Create the Google Form as usual, including questions with multiple choice or checkbox formats. Best Practices Tips: - number your questions. This makes it easier for students to track their progress while taking the quiz, and for review afterwards. - add a question where students enter their name (just in case of any log in issues) Note : You can also add text- or paragraph-based questions, but they will not be auto-graded. You would have to come back and ready them one by one. In the top right-corner, click the three dots , and choose Settings . There are three “tabs” at the top, called “General,” “Presentation,” and “Quizzes.” Set these settings : General CHECK Collect email addr

MS Windows can interpret your laptop’s keyboard in different ways. By default, your laptop is probably set up for the US keyboard. However, this keyboard makes it difficult to type international characters such as ñ , è , and ö -- you have to remember a bunch of esoteric keyboard shortcuts like Alt+0209 . As an alternative, you can change your laptop’s keyboard setting to the US (International) keyboard. This makes the typing of symbols much easier. The International Keyboard is set up so that, when you hit any of the following symbols and then an appropriate letter, it adds the symbol to the letter: Symbols : ~  `   “   ‘ Examples : Type ~ then n  to get   ñ   Type ` then a to get à Type ‘ then e to get é Type “ then o to get ö It works great, but it also changes the way the punctuation works for “regular American typing” (pronounced with a redneck accent). For example, with the International Keyboard, if you press “ you won’t see it until you hi

Here's a little tech love for the fine arts! There are all sorts of reasons to  incorporate fine arts  into a project, and there are a lot of  software tools  that let kids (and grown-ups!) be  creative and artistic . Often, fine arts are best with real-world materials like paint and clay, but sometimes software allows us to look at art a different way, to do things we couldn't do in the real world, or simply to be artistic without the supplies or cleanup. And of course, many of us use art to  express our own creativity , or to  relax and meditate . I've used many of these for my own creative art and music projects, and I thought you might enjoy them, too! Some of these tools work well on in Chrome and on Chromebooks, while others require Windows or Mac laptops, but  all of them are FREE . Music MuseScore Music composition and sheet music Windows and Mac Soundtrap Music recording studio Chrome Audiotool Music synthesizers and drumkit C

This little tidbit makes your Google Classroom posting even easier. When you create a new announcement or assignment in  Classroom , you have the option to  schedule a post for a later date . This is a great way to prep your week's Classroom posts on Sunday night, and have them automatically pop up on the correct  day . When you make your next assignment or announcement, click the  little arrow  next to  POST This gives you a dropdown list of choices: Post  = Post this message to your stream right now Schedule  = Enter a date and time and the post will be automatically post itself then Draft  = Save this message, but don't post it until I say so Any announcements or assignments that are "scheduled" or "drafts" will be hidden away at the top of your stream in the "Saved posts" section. A simple feature, but very handy!

When your laptop is connected to a projector, it usually projects a copy of your laptop screen . However, most teachers don’t realize that the projector can act like a second screen that shows different stuff . This is a feature built right into your laptop, it is easy to set up, and it is super dooper useful. Display lesson plan notes while showing PowerPoint/Google Slides. Keep resources prepped and ready for later use in the lesson Get work done while students are watching a video Keep your email open without the students being able to see it. Keep reading for setup instructions for your HP laptop or Mac. Setup On your HP Laptop… Plug in your projector and turn it on ( don’t skip this step ). Go the Start Menu and choose All Programs > Accessories > Connect to a Projector Choose the Extend option. This treats your projector like second screen that is attached to the “right” of your laptop. Drag items from the “left”