Reeve EdTech Tips

To celebrate the holiday season, I'm sending  12   Days  of easy classroom tech ideas you can use right away!   Day   12 : HHS Social Media I picked the  easiest one  for our last  day  before the break!  We're working on increasing  our school's social media presence , to better  communicate with parents  and the community. Many parents check social media at least daily, and it is a great way to send out "non-essential" notices and photos. We are using social media to help develop a  positive, friendly presence  online. If you use  Facebook ,  Twitter ,  Google+ , or  Instagram , please consider taking a moment to "Like" or "Follow" HHS! It only takes seconds! You can participate in different ways: Candy Cane  level:  Like or follow  us! Reindeer  level:  Like , s hare, or re-tweet  one of our posts! Elf  level: S end me photos or n...

To celebrate the holiday season, I'll be sending out  12   Days  of easy classroom tech ideas you can use right away!  Day  11: Google Slides Not everyone knows that Google has its own version of PowerPoint called Slides. You access it through your Google Drive just like a Google Doc, but it lets you make and develop presentations. It also has all of the collaboration tools and sharing of a normal Google Doc. Students' "presentation  day " with Google Slides is easier. All the student has to do is share the Slides presentation with you and you can project it normally. No fussy USB drives or emailing large files that don't have the videos properly embedded. Slides is also really good at converting existing PowerPoint files into Google Slides format. This means you can upload your existing PowerPoint lessons and easily share them with your students. If you already knew about Slides but haven't looked at it in a while, look again. Google has...

To celebrate the holiday season, I'll be sending out  12   Days  of easy classroom tech ideas you can use right away!   Weekend Edition! Day  10: Google Drawing A little used feature of the Google Apps system is  Google Drawings . I think this is because of its name: it  seems to imply free-hand drawing  on a computer, which may seem of limited use to most teachers. A Barely-Educational Example  (Keep reading for better examples!) However, free-hand is the  least  useful tool in Google Drawings. Where it really shines is in  free-layout text and shape drawing .  Google Drawings is  perfect for making concept maps and graphic organizers . You can make an organizer and share it with your students, or they make make their own.   Maybe these examples I whipped up might seem more educational: Concept Map about Fine Arts [Ironically, the ...

To celebrate the holiday season, I'll be sending out  12   Days  of easy classroom tech ideas you can use right away!   Day  9: Suggestions in Google Docs Have you noticed the  new way to edit/comment in Google Docs ? It's called  Suggesting mode , and it's perfect for teachers. Suggesting mode allows you to  type corrections  into a student's document, but have those changes  highlighted to make them obvious . For example, in the picture below, you can see where I removed "HPS" and inserted "Holliston Public Schools." It  automatically marked my changes  in green, and  automatically created a comment  on the right to show the student what I did. When the student  reopens  the document, she  sees the changes  in green as well as the comment box  on the side. It makes my suggestions  really obvious , and she can accept the suggestion (to make th...

To celebrate the holiday season, I'll be posting 12 Days of easy classroom tech ideas you can use right away! Day 8: Google Charts in Google Docs This is a simple one that used to bug me. Google Sheets is a nice, easy-to-use spreadsheet system that lets students make graphs. Google Docs is a nice, simple word processor that lets students type reports. But until recently, i t used to be surprisingly difficult to get achart into a Google Doc. Enter the "Charts" add-on for Google Docs. Charts lets you, within a Google Doc, access data in a Google Spreadsheet and create a chart/graph right in the doc . This is very nice for a variety of assignments that rely on data analysis . For me, this simple addition is a game changer for science lab reports . Before the "Charts" add-on, lab reports with graphs were impractical; now, they suddenly seem like the best option , especially now that best-fit trendlines can be included (see " 12 Days of Techmas...

To celebrate the holiday season, I'll be sending out 12 Days of easy classroom tech ideas you can use right away! Day 7: BYOD lights Knowing when to use (or not use) BYOD devices is a study and etiquette skill that many students are lacking. It can be frustrating for teachers to be continually reminding students to put away (or take out) their devices at particular points in the lesson. Instead of the constant wrestling, try a trick from the elementary teachers' book, and train your students with simple cues . I like the Red/Yellow/Green light system to cue students about their device use. It makes clear expectations for usage, and helps train the students with easy associations ("Hmmm, today's quiz day, so my teacher will probably set the light to "Red"). Red light Yellow light Green light Devices not allowed Devices allowed Devices required Examples : test or exam days during oral presentations Examples : Takin...

To celebrate the holiday season, I'll be posting out 12 Days of easy classroom tech ideas you can use right away!  Day 6: Email stars Sometimes when I get an important email message, I click the  little star  next to it (or at the top). This labels the message as " Starred ," which can be easily retrieved later.  In fact, in my  Gmail settings , I have my Inbox set to show " Starred first, then everything else ." This keeps the any starred emails at the top of the screen, no matter how many new emails appear. Then, when I no longer need the message, I un-star it and archive it, and it pops off the stack.  Groovy!!

To celebrate the holiday season, I'll be sending out 12 Days of easy classroom tech ideas you can use right away! Day 5: Fake SMS Conversations This cute little online tool ( http://www.classtools.net/SMS/ ) lets a student create a fake conversation between two people , as if they had been texting each other. It's a fun way for students to show a little understanding of historical figures , famous scientists or mathematicians , or modern day role models . It's also an easy way for teachers to create little educational jokes . For example, below is one I just whipped up about Napoleon, which I could put in my PowerPoint presentation as a comic relief break. If you make students do it as an assignment (or extra credit), they send you the link to their finished product (here's mine: http://www.classtools.net/SMS/51_Va3VK9 ). It's free (with ads), and is super easy to use!

To celebrate the holiday season, I'll be posting 12 Days of easy classroom tech ideas you can use right away! Weekend Edition! Day 4: Trendlines in Google Sheets This one snuck by me last August, but Google added the ability to add trendlines to its Google Sheets charts and graphs ! Science and math teachers know that this has always been a major feature missing from Google Sheets. When students create graphs, they have the option to add a linear or exponential trendline, and an option to display the R-squared and coefficient values. Here's a link to the specific instructions: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/6075154 Have fun! See you Monday!

To celebrate the holiday season, I'll be posting 12 Days of easy classroom tech ideas you can use right away! Day 3: Share your PowerPoints Do you use PowerPoint presentations in class? Instead of simply showing the presentation on the projector, why not share the PowerPoint with your class ? If you upload the PowerPoint file to your Google Drive , it is easy to share it with your students (or with anyone), and Google Drive will make sure that students on almost any device are able to open it. This is especially helpful if you want to include links or references in the presentation. Cheers!

To celebrate the holiday season, I'll be posting 12 Days of easy classroom tech ideas you can use right away! Day 2: Let students use the Doc Camera Are you reviewing a worksheet or math problem on your doc camera? Instead of you standing at the camera showing the answers, how about having a student display her work ? You can lead a class discussion about which answers are acceptable and which need correction. You can always jump in if you need to, but modeling student work is a great way to get your class more involved in a review. It's a subtle change that can have a big impact.

To celebrate the holiday season, I'll be posting 12 Days of easy classroom tech ideas you can use right away! Day 1: Feature Images Want an easy way to spice up your next writing assignment ? Require students to include at least one image (or maybe two or three)! This would be similar to the way a newspaper or magazine uses photos to enhance an article, and involves some surprising insight to do well. You will be fascinated by their choices of images, and it may make your students (and you) think about the topic in a different way. For an extra challenge, you could require that the images be licensed for reuse (non-copyrighted)! Ho Ho Ho!