Reeve EdTech Tips

Using technology is not always about cool, new apps -- sometimes, it's about creative uses of the tools you already have. Today's tip is a  new use  of an  old tool : using Google Forms for formative assessments. 12   Days  of Techmas,  Day  6: Student-Made Formative Assessments Small-scale formative assessments  are important checking in on student learning. A common use of formative assessments is for  vocabulary review  or  basic factual understanding  and recall.  Google Forms  is a great tool for this, especially now that Google has added a  Quiz feature  that corrects students responses.  On the other hand,  who wants to make a whole bunch of tiny vocab quizzes ? Like you don't have enough to do already, right? So today's tip is a way to use technology to  flip the responsibility :  ** Why not  have your  students  make the quizzes ?  Studen...

These instructions describe how students can send their computer screen to yours (either for you to watch, or for you to show on your projector). This works with teacher laptops, and with any Chromebook or BYOD Windows or Mac laptop. How to Cast Teacher First time : complete the Setup Instructions on the next page. Open Google Chrome Sign in to Chrome . Open your Chrome Apps . Click the green Google Cast for Education icon. Have the student complete Steps 6-8 shown to the right. When the request notification appears, click “ Accept .” Student Sign in on Chromebook or in Google Chrome browser. BYOD laptops also need to connect to wifi Click the Google Cast icon next in the top right corner. Let the app search the network, then click your teacher’s name . Setup Instructions (Teachers) You only need to do this at the start of each term or semester. Open the Google Chrome web browser. Sign in to Chrome if you haven’t already....

In the same way that the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store provide apps for smartphones, the  Chrome Web Store  is a place where you can get apps, extensions, and themes for Chromebooks and your Chrome browser. Apps Apps are programs that run in the Chrome browser. They are compatible with any Chromebook, or on any Windows PC or Mac using Google Chrome.   Examples: photo editing software, to-do list software, games Extensions Extensions are little features that you add to your Chrome experience. Think of it like "I wish I had a button that would do this...."  Extensions add that button. Examples: screenshot capturing, send-to-Drive and send-to-Classroom, Evernote web clipper Themes Themes are color coding schemes for decoration. You can play with them to add some visual appeal to Chrome, but they don't do much. Examples: Patriots themes, Christmas themes, etc. Pre-loading for your students If you find a great app or extension fo...

There are so many times I need to capture what our computer screens look like, so we can share something with our students. For example, let me show you my recent internet search for penguins wearing hats.... There are ways to do this on your Windows PC or Mac, but I prefer to use the Chrome extension  Awesome Screenshot . It lets me capture a variety of things, including a browser tab, my entire desktop, or just a small part of the screen.  Then, it lets me add quick arrows, circles, text, or whatever to my image, like this....   It also lets you save the screenshots to your Google Drive, or simply copy/paste them into a document.  It's super easy to use, and installs in seconds. Visit  this link  and add it to Chrome. Then, any time Chrome is open, you can grab the screenshot you need. 

The  international  Hour of Code  initiative  is designed to promote  computer science skills  among students of all ages,  especially girls , who are often have great programming potential but feel discouraged from trying it out.  Many schools across the US devote  an hour of classtime during the week of Dec.  12 -16  to engaging students in coding-related games and activities. As a school, HHS is  not   formally   participating in this Hour of Code this year. However, as individual teachers, you can do a lot to promote this important program to give students an opportunity to explore programming in a fun, non-threatening way. If you can  spare the time  next week (entirely optional) and would like to have your students participate in an  Hour of Code activity , visit  https://hourofcode.com/ us/learn . There are well over 100 activities that your students can choose from, and nea...

Children and adults all over the country love this time of the year, because it's time for Mr. Reeve's  12   Days  of  Techmas !      Throughout December, I'll be sending little  tech  tips and hints to make your season bright! Day  1:   Google Santa Tracker Google is using the power of internet technology to  track Santa's progress  on Christmas Eve, and to  help pass the time  until he arrives! The  Google Santa Tracker  includes a set of daily "all ages" activities that unlock each  day  from Dec 1-24. These activites are "gently educational," and teach kids about a range of things including basic coding, geography, holiday traditions around the world, and elf awareness  (OK, I made that last one up) .  These activities are usually in the form of  little games , and can be played on Chromebooks and laptops using the Google Chrome Browser. There is a e...

One of the biggest hurdles for teachers in using Google Drive and Google Docs is making the transition from MS Office. Google Docs are great for sharing and collaborating, but not so great at complex formatting. If you have years of worksheets, quizzes, memos, and other documents (all carefully formatted), you are rightfully reluctant to lose all of that work. However, the big secret is that you don't need to transition from one to the other. You can use the best of both worlds , together , choosing to use Google Docs for sharing and collaboration, and MS Office for more complex documents. This tutorial is designed to show you how to use Google Drive with MS Office together, and keep using Office whenever you want. It will cover these topics: Getting your files into your Google Drive. Installing Awesome Drive to to launch MS Office files from Google Drive. Installing the Google Drive Plugin for MS Office to open/save files into your Google Drive from within Office ...