For some recent professional development I have been focusing on thinking routines from The Visible Thinking website. One particularly powerful reflection routine caught my attention, so I created a related template for it in Google Drawings.
The routine requires the learner to complete this statement and explain why:
I used to think _____, but now I think _____.
Of course, this comes best after the students have done something that would have changed their thinking. It could be a lecture, video, book, event or a significant passing of time.
As a tech activity, I made a Google Drawing template (which you can get at the link below). It uses two photos and brief text. Ideally students would edit the template to make it their own, then explain to the class (or other audience) why their thinking changed.
Here's an example I made based on a shift in thinking that happened for me after I left the math classroom to work in ed-tech.
As this next image shows, students can change the text and replace the images easily. I have a few other tips listed below.
Other tips for this activity:
There are many ways to get the images. Students can take them themselves or they can use the search feature. I include the word "Pixabay" when I search, so it will use the Pixabay site as a source. Images from there are free to use without attribution.
If students use images from other sources, they should be sure they are citing their sources properly.
I made the text boxes a semi-transparent color to make text easier to read. With some background images you will have to experiment with text and fill colors and possibly font styles to be sure it can be read.
Remind students this is meant to be a quick tech activity. The thinking that goes into the wording and the explanation of why thinking changed is far more important than getting the right images and fonts.
Download the Drawing as a JPEG or PNG file (in the File menu) if you want to post it in a blog, website or on social media.
This is good reflection activity for teachers too!
We started the comic in September and worked on it regularly through October. Then classes changed and I got busy with other projects. It took a lot of effort to finish it, but I'm happy with the results.
You can read the complete story here. I added plenty of notes throughout, so you can get an idea of the work that went into it.
We ended up telling the story in a variety of ways, using photos, drawings and even prose.
Throughout the project I tried to faithfully incorporate ideas from the students who followed along and gave their feedback through Google Forms.
In the final weeks of school, I reunited with the girls who started it and we brought in the additional characters. We had one last photo session. It was a hectic end to the school year, but I managed to complete the final chapter and publish it on the very last day of school.
This would be an excellent addition to a Digital Media class. The skills involved went far beyond just familiarity with Google Slides.
As with any of the comic projects I've written about, you could publish the final product in a variety of ways.
As of this posting, they don't have the schedule complete. Here are the links to the sessions I'll be leading. (I'll add some previews and session resources to these documents as we get closer to the date.)
I was at a small conference this week at our ISD. That means I spent a lot of time preparing sessions, presenting and chatting with colleagues. I realized I keep coming back to a few "essential skills for teachers", so I thought I'd compile my resources for them here.
These are not directed to teachers on the cutting edge of tech integration. They are for those many teachers who have Chromebooks, but mostly use them for research and managing assignments in Google Classroom.
All of these appear on my blog somewhere else, but I'm combining them here along with some next steps or extended activities. And I added some essential reading at the end too.
Skill #1: Getting photos and video from a phone or tablet into Google Drive
I'm still amazed at how many teachers don't use this. They (or their students) try to email files or even send them in text messages. If you can get a photo or video to Google Drive right on your phone, you have a bridge between the real world and your tech projects. From Drive, you (or the people you share them with) can open the images and videos on a Chromebook and use them in countless ways.
Most apps have other ways of sharing out the files. I didn't include it in the tutorial because of all the possible variations, but experiment with it on your phone. Can you get the content from your favorite apps into Drive? If so, it offers great options for projects on the Chromebooks.
The Google Slides and Docs apps on phones and tablets will allow you to insert the pictures directly into the document or slideshow. Imagine having a team working on the slides while another documents the activity by taking pictures. One teacher I showed this to last summer told me it's now a Day 1 activity for his middle school science classes.
Skill #2: Making a PDF eBook Using Google Slides
PDFs can be viewed easily on any device. Teachers and students who can turn their slideshows into PDFs have a great opportunity for showing off the learning beyond the classroom.
While it can take awhile to make attractive pages in Google Slides, the few clicks necessary to make a custom sized PDF only take about a minute. From there, the creation options for communicating to the world are endless.
Mostly the next steps here are just to improve the design of your ebook. For example, more attractive images, better layouts, etc. This comes from exploring the different tools in Google Slides and learning about good design.
I've helped very young students create presentations in Google Slides. Even in kindergarten we had success with it. Of course, you have to provide more structure in early grades. For example, in that project I built the slides and put clipart on each one. The students just moved the graphics around to design their pages. In third grade we made ebooks and gave the students more freedom. There I simply created a blank slideshow and changed the dimensions of the slides as shown in the tutorial above. Then I shared it to groups through Google Classroom and they added the content collaboratively.
Skill #3: Making a Recorded Slideshow with Screencastify
I created this tutorial several months ago, but it was clear at the tech conference this week that many agree with me. Screencastify is the screen recording tool of choice for a Chromebook. I love how it records the screen and goes immediately to Google Drive.
In my district, I encourage all teachers and any student in grades 6 - 12 to use that tool along with Google Slides to make a "recorded slideshow". It's a good first step in screen recording that lets teachers communicate a lesson or other information. And students can use it to show what they've learned.
My tutorial is about recording a presentation as you click through the slides, but really you can record anything on the screen. You could introduce a website, a skill using a new tech tool or (by recording the camera) you can even capture live video. The paid version of Screencastify allows editing of the video to some extent and many other good tools are out there to make professional recordings. Camtasia is my favorite, but it is costly.
Explore tab recording in Screencastify. It gives you more tools as you record.
The same process can be used for digital storytelling. Imagine making the pages of a story in Google Slides, then recording it while telling the story and clicking through the pages. For young students, the whole story could be told with just a single slide or even a single photo.
Students can also use Screencastify to record their explanation of a problem. For example, they might use Google Drawings to create a visualization of a math problem, then they could record themselves explaining their thinking.
Required Reading for Every Teacher Who Uses Technology
Be sure to see my post from earlier this summer about Liz Kolb's Triple E Framework. It is the most practical, research based model I've seen for directing or evaluating effective use of tech in the classroom. As my post explains, her website contains a lot of valuable information, but her book is well worth reading. It's called Learning First, Technology Second.
So that's my current list of essentials. If you have questions or suggestions to add to the list, please add a comment below or send me an email.
I love reflection activities that get students thinking about the learning in a deeper way. These usually amount to just asking good questions and they do not have to involve technology at all. As our district is using a lot more Chromebooks, though, I have been creating more templates that use Google Apps to make it easy for teachers and students to manage the work digitally.
When you click the links for the templates below, you'll get a copy in your Google Drive. From there, you can edit them any way you need to for your lessons. I also hope they give you ideas for other templates specific to your teaching style.
Learning Target and Reflection Journal
As our district is focusing on learning targets this year. Andrea Thelen, one of our English teachers, came up with some reflection questions to direct students to the targets. Her students complete the form below at the end of class a few times each week and they do a summary activity at the end of the week.
I put the original in this Google Document and we shared it with other teachers who have adapted it to fit their needs.
I created the Note-Taking Template as a Google Slides presentation because that allowed me to add a background image that wouldn't be edited accidentally when students typed in the text boxes.
A Slides presentation also makes it easy to keep multiple pages of notes in one place. To make more pages, students can just right click on a slide on the left of the screen and choose to duplicate it. Of course if they plan on using multiple pages, it's best to always duplicate the first slide before typing on it, so they always have a blank one to duplicate later.
Students will need to use the zoom tool to zoom in once or twice to easily read the template and their notes. The "presentation" that it refers to could be anything--your lesson, student presentations or a movie, for example.
If you want to edit the background image, on the Slides template, I created it as a Google Drawing. Just edit this Drawing so it looks how you want, then download it as a PNG file. Use that PNG as the background on your Slides template.
Lab Poster Template
I created this Lab Poster Template for a science teacher who wanted a simple way for students to report about their experiment. It's a Google Drawing and it serves as an example of how easy this tool is for making digital posters for any learning experience. (See this post on my other blog for another fun example.)
Students can add tables, clip art or even photos they take. To get those photos into the Drawing, I suggest uploading them to their Google Drive using the Google Drive app on their phone or tablet. Once in Drive, it's easy to import them into the Drawing.
See my video below if you or the students are unfamiliar with Google Drawings. It's a very informal tutorial I created so the teacher could help his students get started. It explains basic editing and how to insert images.
This is the third part in a game design exploration based on the game Love Letter*. The activity would work well in any language arts or social studies class.
In this stage, students will test the games. They might play their own game or just play each other's games. You could even incorporate revisions and further playtesting. It all depends on how much time you want them to spend on this. Details follow below.
If a class is working through this design activity, at this point each group of students should have redesigned the Love Letter game to fit the lesson content. At the very least they should have done the following. (All of this is explained in the second post in this series.)
Chosen a theme for their game based on the topic studied in class
Created a title for their game
Written a short introduction about the game
Redesigned the cards and changed them on the template found in Part 2 of this series.
Optionally, the groups might have designed additional rules and components for their game.
Making the Cards
In the previous stage of this activity, students revised a template to create new cards based on the Love Letter game. Before they can test the games, they'll need to produce some cards they can actually play with. One way to do that is to print on card stock, but I've found it's easy to see through most card stock I've used over the years.
Whether it's a first draft or a late stage prototype, here's the method I've been using lately.
Put an old playing card or some other game card in them that you won't need. This keeps them stiff enough to shuffle.
Print your cards on paper and cut the cards out. (Or for first drafts, you might just write them by hand on slips of paper.)
Slide those paper "cards" into the sleeves.
Here's a short video that I created for students that shows how I use this process with early and late stage prototypes.
If the groups added rules for additional cards or components, all of those pieces need to be printed and cut out or gathered as well.
Depending on how much time you want the class to devote to this playtesting experience, groups could make two or more copies of their game so multiple groups could play them at once.
The importance of playtesting and revision - the iterative process in game design
This testing and revision stage of the game design process is essential. It can be fun and rewarding or sometimes very frustrating! It's often the heart of the creation process and it will probably take more time than all other parts combined.
Being so important, students need to see it. With limited class time, though, it is likely you will use it in this activity only provide some exposure to the concepts and a chance to have fun with the designs. Tell students it is important when making any type of game, but remind them to really test and improve their game they'd need to work on it a lot outside of class.
Keeping that in mind, tweak the following outline and resources to fit your needs.
Groups test their own games
Game designers often play their own games first, just to see if the creations even work at all. At this stage, each group should play their game at least once.
After playing, students should discuss these questions:
Did the game work as we intended?
Did we find anything (good or bad) that we didn't expect?
How much do we think other groups will enjoy our game?
What changes could we make to improve the game?
Depending on how much time you have for this design exploration, students could rework their cards. Simple changes might be handwritten right on the cards. Significant changes might require students to actually alter the cards in the original Google Drawings they made in Part 2 of this activity.Of course, that would require them to print and cut out more components.
If time doesn't allow a students to make all the changes they want to, remind them that they can improve the game as much as they want on their own.
Groups test a game designed by another group
For this part of the activity, each group will play at least one other group's game. Ideally this will be "blind playtesting", meaning the groups will play the games without additional assistance from the game designers.
The game components should already be created by now. Game introductions and possibly new rules need to be printed (or shared through Google Drive) so groups have everything they need to learn and play the games.
Along with these materials, give each group a copy of this Game Playtesting Sheet. It provides questions for before and after playing the game.
Additional considerations
Give the groups time in class to read and discuss the Game Playtesting Sheets that test groups filled out for their game.
Groups could test games from more than one group if possible.
Students could take their games home and have other people play them to get more opinions.
Have a class discussion (possibly virtually) at the end of this stage so you and the students can look for patterns on what worked best in the games.
It would be ideal to get test groups from a class that did not go through the design process themselves. In other words, they would likely be unfamiliar with Love Letter, so the whole experience would be new to them. This requires the designers to put a lot more work into their written rules.
*Love Letter was designed by Seiji Kanai and published by Alderac Entertainment Group. I have permission from the publisher to use their game as I have in this exploration. Please consider supporting them by buying a copy of the game that your students can play as they learn the basic rules.
I first made this list in the summer of 2015. With each year of experience behind me and changes with the tools I'll keep updating this. Most updates were made in 2016, but a few have been added in July, 2017. New items and information are clearly noted below.
When teachers and students show off the best things they learned, perceptions change and the culture changes. I want to make sure my district is known as a place where important learning happens every day.
But a lot of teachers in my district like hands-on, physical projects. Just how many art exhibits and science fairs can you do a year? So I compiled this list so even those paintings done with real paint and the science experiment made of food can be shown off to the world.
I made this for the teachers I work with daily, so please keep in mind:
It is a tool for awareness, not a how-to guide. Teachers in my district would contact me for one on one help. Since most of you won't have that option, I added links below to many of my Tech Project Packs. They were designed to help teachers quickly incorporate tech into their projects. I wrote about them all on this blog here.
Most classrooms in my district use laptops or Chromebooks. I didn't include options for tablets with most of the ideas.
1) Live broadcasts of student presentations - Use The Cube.
You can broadcast to the internet easily with an iPhone or iPad.
Someone from your school will have to sign up and create an admin account at the site.
Share the link to your broadcast with parents or to the community beforehand so anyone can watch live.
The recording can be left online, so people can watch it later if you want.
When using live video, be sure you have parent permission to post online and remember not to identify students by first and last name.
New information:
I actually haven't used The Cube for a couple years now, since I wasn't involved with any live broadcasts in my district. It appears that service still works as described here, but now the two social media options below might be better.
I have used Periscope for some personal projects and I love its simplicity.
And of course Facebook Live is a very popular way to go now.
Update 2017: If I do live announcements now, I'll use YouTube Live.
2) Websites and Blogs - A simple site or blog (created by you or the students themselves) is the starting point for sharing all the other types of project presentations listed below.
Any final product, even if it’s has no tech involved, can be posted online by way of pictures and text.
3) A PDF ebook - Within seconds anything students make in Google Docs or Slides can be turned into a PDF. From there it can be posted on any blog or website so anyone can open or download it like an ebook.
With the file open, go to the File menu and select the option to Download as PDF.
Once the PDF is downloaded, upload it to Drive again and share it as needed.
New information:This tutorial is specifically about making a comic, but it does show the process of downloading a PDF from Google Slides.
4) InfoPics - If he didn’t invent this simple concept, Tony Vincent is the one who named it and he sings its praises. This really is just a process of adding notes or other text to pictures that are related to a topic.
It would be very easy for students to make these and share the images on a website or blog.The pictures could also be shared by a teacher or a parent on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or any other social network.
The device you like to use will dictate the tools, but I’d suggest Google Drawings for computers or Chromebooks. Pixlr.com is a good tool on many devices if you want to add more effects to your pictures.
New information:
Update 2017: I used to recommend Adobe Spark as the first tool to check out for this. They call the pictures with text "Posts". Here's a tutorial about using it. It's still a great tool, but students under the age of 13 cannot sign up for an account without lying about their age.
They have added a presentation option to Piktochart. Now with the click of a button the infographic can be used as a more traditional slideshow for live presentations.
6) Audio Recordings (podcasts) - Students can create audio recordings and share them online in a variety of ways. These can be completed much faster than a video project. Here are a few details.
7) Virtual books on Flipsnack - This site is a great tool that turns any PDF into a fun virtual book.
Important Note: I found out if students sign in using a Google Apps for Education account it uses the first and last name in the URLs. This is not a good practice. See the link to my new tutorial below about changing the username so it doesn't include student names.
I usually create the PDF in Google Slides or Google Docs first, then upload to Flipsnack.
9) Digital slideshows - These are a series of pictures combined into a video by using an editing program.
These are a step up from screen recordings because you can (and should) edit them.
Students can add audio. It might be just background music or they can narrate the slideshow.
With narration, these become presentations that present themselves.
They make a good introduction to video production, but don’t require as much time.
New information:
Forget everything you read from my blog about previous methods for this! I now recommend Adobe Spark Videos as the best tool. See this video tutorial for an example and how-to tips.
Update 2017: I still like Adobe Spark for video, but we had problems using it on Chromebooks. Also, students under the age of 13 cannot sign up for an account without lying about their age.
10) Videos - Producing a good video is the pinnacle of technology integration in most classes.
Good videos require several technology skills and a deep understanding of class content.
There is a huge range of possibilities for complexity. Don’t just tell students they can “make a video”! Know the options and set guidelines that are appropriate for your students.
I'm in the process up updating some resources for these projects. Honestly, I've found they take a long time and I have been encouraging the digital slideshows over full videos. I will say I now prefer the paid version of WeVideo for the editor. Note that the free version is not COPPA and FERPA compliant.
Over the course of this school year I created a few "Quick Tips" about Google Drive and other tools for the teachers I work with. My goal was to highlight easy, useful features in under two minutes.
First, a couple general comments:
Google updates the apps frequently, so even the more recent videos might show slightly outdated interfaces. The general processes are the same though.
Some of these are very informal recordings done quickly for other purposes. I trust they'll still be of use as a quick lesson.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below or send me an email. I'm always happy to help and I'll add to this list as more information is requested.
Navigating Google Drive
Organizing files in Google Drive
Uploading files of any type to Google Drive
How to share files in Google Drive using Link Sharing - It's better than typing everyone's email address in that box!
Inserting images in Google Docs
Adding hyperlinks to Google Docs, Slides and Drawings
Adding comments to a document - This includes tips on doing this without taking your hands off the keyboard. That's really helpful when grading several papers!
Here's a quick way to help students develop a growth mindset as you recognize their progress. You can create achievement pages for each of them using Google Apps such as Drawings and Docs.
At the end of a semester or year, students will have a record of milestones they passed in their learning journey. You can personalize them as much as you want for your class and the students. Be sure to encourage a growth mindset by praising effort and the process of learning.
Here's the procedure:
First, make a blank achievement page as a Google document. Put the student's name at the top and any other information you want to include. I also suggest adding a table to the document to keep the achievements organized. Once you get the basic arrangement you like, you'll copy the document and change the name for each student in your class.
Next, search Pixabay to easily find quality public domain clip art of awards and trophies.
Copy and paste a few of those clip art images into a blank Google Drawing.
Add some Word Art, shapes or text boxes to decorate each award. Make them personal! Name them after your favorite phrases, teaching techniques or projects. Of course, encourage a growth mindset too. If you need ideas, here's a great list of resources from Vicki Davis' blog.
Ideally you'll make a few generic awards. You can also make custom awards this way at any time, even at the last minute for some achievements. The more personalized and relevant to the project at hand, the better.
When it's time to recognize a student's achievement, "snip" a copy of an award. You'll use different tools for this depending on the type of computer you're using. On a Windows computer, use the Snipping Tool. Here are keystrokes for a Chromebook or a Mac. Note that it is easiest to copy the image you capture rather than just saving it to your computer.
Paste that snipped image into a table cell on student's achievement page. Add a note that is specific to what they earned the award. Include a date too.
After you add the first award, share it with the student. If they have Google Apps for Education accounts, this is easy. Just Share as you would any document, but be sure to make it View only. You don't want them to be able to edit these achievement pages.
If the students don't have Google accounts, use link sharing and send the link to the student (possibly at a parent's email address) or using a link shortener like Goo.gl.
Add awards at anytime after you've shared it and students can see their updated achievement sheet at anytime. They can drag the URL to their bookmarks bar in Chrome, so it's always only a click away.
2015 was an exciting year for helping teachers beyond my local district! In this post I will list some of the top tips, activities and resources from this blog over the past 12 months.
Now on to the great resources that got the most attention this year… I ran a few PD sessions in the summer and these popular tips and tipsheets were a result:
New Game Design Resources Any teacher knows students today love games and many of them want to make games. I posted two popular series about creating games design this year. These are both non-digital game activities.
This first one is a “make a game in an hour” activity that I’ve done with designers. I started with a big picture look at what I and others have learned from making games.
Game Design in the Classroom - What I learned, what others learned, the "game jam" style activity and thoughts on developing and publishing
Later in the year I created this series, which one designer called a “baby step” into game design. All the resources are created in Google Docs for easy modification and sharing with students. It’s a flexible introduction to making games that integrates with many subjects. The flow of the project is...
This is the third part of a series for a classroom game design project that can be used in many classes and subjects. The whole project is based on a very simple game I created. Students will modify that game so it's about the topic they are studying in class.
Here's the flow of the overall project. Each of these stages has its own post, which you can access by clicking the link.
Learn and play Roll-n-Flip - Students need to learn to play the basic game of Roll-n-Flip first. It should take one class period or less to learn the game and to play it a couple times.
Redesign Roll-n-Flip - Next, students will modify the game by adding a theme (based on your lesson) and possibly other rules. This can take more or less than one class period, depending on how much you want them to develop their version of the game.
Play and improve their game - In this step students test the game their group made and then at least one game created by another group. You could also give them time to improve their game based on feedback. This process can be a class period or more, depending how much you want to focus on game design.
Reflection- For the last part of the activity, students will reflect on what they learned about your course content and about game design. This reflection "seals the deal" for the learning, making this possibly the most important of step of the project.
_________________
The importance of playtesting and revision - the iterative process in game design
This testing and revision stage of the game design process is essential. It can be fun and rewarding or sometimes very frustrating! It's often the heart of the creation process and it will probably take more time than all other parts combined.
Being so important, students need to see it. With limited class time, though, it is likely you will use it in this activity only provide some exposure to the concepts and a chance to have fun with the designs. Tell students it is important when making any type of game, but remind them to really test and improve their game they'd need to work on it a lot outside of class.
Keeping that in mind, tweak the following outline and resources to fit your needs.
Is everyone ready to proceed?
If a class is working through this design activity, at this point each group of students should have redesigned the simple Roll-n-Flip game. At the very least they should have done the following. (All of this is explained in the second post in this series.)
Chosen a theme for their game based on the topic studied in class
Created a title for their game
Written a short introduction about the game
Redesigned the 11 cards and changed them on the template found in Part 2 of this series
Optionally, the groups might have designed additional rules and components for their game.
Make the games.
When all the parts above are complete, groups should print and cut out any cards or components they need to play their games. It's best to print the cards on cardstock or at least the thickest paper possible.
Each group also needs at least one die. They need tokens for a pawn and chips too, but a template in Part 2 provided components they could cut from paper if those tokens were not available.
If the groups added rules for additional cards or components, all of those pieces need to be printed and cut out or gathered as well.
Depending on how much time you want the class to devote to this playtesting experience, groups could make two or more copies of their game so multiple groups could play them at once.
Groups test their own games
Game designers often play their own games first, just to see if the creations even work at all. At this stage, each group should play their game at least once.
After playing, students should discuss these questions:
Did the game work as we intended?
Did we find anything (good or bad) that we didn't expect?
How much do we think other groups will enjoy our game?
What changes could we make to improve the game?
Depending on how much time you have for this design exploration, students could rework their cards. Simple changes might be handwritten right on the cards. Significant changes might require students to actually alter the cards in the original Google Drawings they made in Part 2 of this activity.Of course, that would require them to print and cut out more components.
If time doesn't allow a students to make all the changes they want to, remind them that they can improve the game as much as they want on their own.
Groups test a game designed by another group
For this part of the activity, each group will play at least one other group's game. Ideally this will be "blind playtesting", meaning the groups will play the games without additional assistance from the game designers.
The game components should already be created by now. Game introductions and possibly new rules need to be printed (or shared through Google Drive) so groups have everything they need to learn and play the games.
Along with these materials, give each group a copy of this Game Playtesting Sheet. It provides questions for before and after playing the game.
Additional considerations
Give the groups time in class to read and discuss the Game Playtesting Sheets that test groups filled out for their game.
Groups could test games from more than one group if possible.
Students could take their games home and have other people play them to get more opinions.
Have a class discussion (possibly virtually) at the end of this stage so you and the students can look for patterns on what worked best in the games.
It would be ideal to get test groups from a class that did not go through the design process themselves. In other words, they would likely be unfamiliar even with Roll-n-Flip, so the whole experience would be new to them. This requires the designers to put a lot more work into their rules.
In the next post (and final stage of the activity) students will reflect on their game designs and the design process.
I created this Thanksgiving Magnetic Poetry* in Google Drawings for another teacher. If you click the link, it will ask you to make a copy in your Google Drive.
*If you get a message to request access when you click the link, it is because your Google account won't let you open it. It is shared properly and anyone can open it unless their administrator blocked outside sharing.
I suggest editing it as you prefer, then assigning it in Google Classroom so all your students get their own copy.
The words are all images except for the five text boxes at the top. It might be cheating to type your own words in magnetic poetry, but teachers can delete those text boxes if they don't want students to use them. I would suggest students limit themselves to five of their own words at most.
You can remove any of the word images that you want too.
If you and your students enjoy this activity, please share a link in the comments of the poems you and they create!
If you like this simple activity, please consider purchasing one of my inexpensive tech activities on Teachers Pay Teachers. It helps me continue to make creative, educational resources.
Last week I presented at GoogleFest 2015 in Lansing, Michigan. I showed a packed room of teachers how I use Google Drawings and Google Slides to create comics from photos. Now it's easier than ever when using the Slides mobile app.
Some pictures and thoughts were tweeted out about the session. You can follow everything about the conference using #migooglefest. Here's one attendee's comic frame using a picture we took in the session:
I updated the resources on my comics site, which you can find here. Most of the updates were just in the presentation itself, but I changed some links and added some notes. The site contains information about using the comics in classroom creativity games too.
As always, I started the session off with a big picture look at the importance of creativity in learning.
These four tipsheets are about the most important pages in Google Classroom, each from the teacher's side of things. The most common tasks I'm asked about and the most overlooked options are marked with stars.
I am sharing them as Google Drawings so you can copy and modify them as necessary. You can easily download them as PDFs or image files if necessary.
This year my mantra is going to be Show off the learning!
When teachers and students show off the best things they learned, perceptions change and the culture changes. I want to make sure my district is known as a place where important learning happens every day.
I'm a big fan of that final essential stage of project-based learning: Put the final product in front of a larger audience.
A lot of teachers in my district like hands-on, physical projects and they've struggled ideas for making them public. (How many art exhibits and science fairs can you do a year?)
I compiled this list so now they have options for even those paintings done with real paint and the science experiment made of food.
Because I made this for the teachers I work with, please keep in mind:
It is a tool for awareness, not a how-to guide. Teachers in my district would contact me for more help. I included examples and some links to tutorials or tips below, but all the tools will require further exploration beyond this post.
Most classrooms in my district use laptops or Chromebooks. I didn't include options for tablets with most of the ideas.
I've listed these options roughly in order of how much tech is involved on the part of the students.
1) Live broadcasts of student presentations - Use The Cube.
You can broadcast to the internet easily with an iPhone or iPad.
Someone from your school will have to sign up and create an admin account at the site.
Share the link to your broadcast with parents or to the community beforehand so anyone can watch live.
The recording can be left online, so people can watch it later if you want.
When using live video, be sure you have parent permission to post online and remember not to identify students by first and last name.
2) Websites and Blogs - A simple site or blog (created by you or the students themselves) is the starting point for sharing all the other types of project presentations listed below.
Any final product, even if it’s has no tech involved, can be posted online by way of pictures and text.
3) A PDF ebook - Within seconds anything students make in Google Docs or Slides can be turned into a PDF. From there it can be posted on any blog or website so anyone can open or download it like an ebook.
With the file open, go to the File menu and select the option to Download as PDF.
Once the PDF is downloaded, upload it to Drive again and share it as needed.
4) InfoPics - If he didn’t invent this simple concept, Tony Vincent is the one who named it and he sings its praises. This really is just a process of adding notes or other text to pictures that are related to a topic.
It would be very easy for students to make these and share the images on a website or blog.The pictures could also be shared by a teacher or a parent on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or any other social network.
The device you like to use will dictate the tools, but I’d suggest Google Drawings for computers or Chromebooks. Pixlr.com is a good tool on many devices if you want to add more effects to your pictures.
5) Infographics - Students can create infographic images to show facts in a concise, visually appealing way.
Finished graphics can be posted on social media or websites and blogs.
6) Audio Recordings (podcasts) - Students can create audio recordings and share them online in a variety of ways. These can be completed much faster than a video project. Here are a few details.
On a PC with a microphone (or a laptop) Audacity is the program to use for recording.
On a Chromebook you can try SoundCloud for recording (if editing isn’t necessary) or SoundTrap. Both work with Google accounts.
Finished mp3 or wav files can be uploaded to SoundCloud so people can listen to them and even add comments.
7) Virtual books on Flipsnack - This site is a great tool that turns any PDF into a fun virtual book.
Important Note: I found out if students sign in using a Google Apps for Education account it uses the first and last name in the URLs. This is not a good practice. Be sure students go to their account page at Flipsnack to change their username when they first log in. It only takes a minute.
I usually create the PDF in Google Slides or Google Docs first, then upload to Flipsnack.
10) Videos - Producing a good video is the pinnacle of technology integration in most classes.
Good videos require several technology skills and a deep understanding of class content.
There is a huge range of possibilities for complexity. Don’t just tell students they can “make a video”! Know the options and set guidelines that are appropriate for your students.
