Summer Learning

This Week’s Topic in Focus:

This will be our final post of the 2016-17 school year.  We want to thank all of you who have tuned in each week and hope that you have been able to implement some of the suggestions or strategies in your classroom. If you have missed posts, please feel free to look back at any of our earlier entries. All of our prior posts are organized by the four categories we covered each month: Cool Tools, G-Suite for Education, Global Connections/PLN, and Schoology. For easy navigation to posts of interest, simply click on the keyword located in the banner above.

We all have our to do list of things we hope to achieve, revisit to refresh and get ready for the next school year.  In today’s blog we will feature a few items per each category that we suggest should make it onto your reading/exploration list for the summer.

Melanie and Kyle’s Tips for Summer Awesomeness

• Schoology - Schoology has new features on the docket for the 2017-18 school year. We believe that these new features are going to make the Schoology experience more robust for both you and your students.
• Google Integration - Google and Schoology will be more seamless than ever before.  Google Docs and other drive apps will now be embedded and shared with students in a simple interface that lives completely within Schoology. Check out the Schoology- Google Integration Announcement video to learn more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0IVWfQrGiw
• New Assessment Features - Schoology is launching a brand new set of Next Generation Assessment tools that will knock your socks off!  Review the full list of question types on Schoology’s support page.  
• G-Suite for Education
• Level 1 Google Certified Educator - Consider becoming a Google Certified Educator.  You can use the self paced training modules to attack this on your own. Going through these modules will help you take a deep dive into the G-Suite for Education apps and you will learn impactful features that you are probably not aware even exist. Please contact Kyle if you are interested in working with a group during first quarter next school year.
• Google Classroom - Schoology is and will continue to be our Learning Management Platform but we also highly recommend supplementing with Google Classroom for workflow management and integration to third party apps. Read this blog post by Alice Keeler if you are ready to get started with the basics of Google Classroom. If you have already dabbled in  Classroom and are ready to go further, her post about next steps will be worth a read.
• Cool Tools
• EdPuzzle - We posted on this topic a back in January, Read the post if you missed it.  This tool alone has been a huge asset to anyone who has started their blended learning journey.  
• Extensions in Chrome Browser - When it comes to choosing a browser Google Chrome blows the competition out of the water because of its unique library of extensions and apps. Our personal favorites are Screencastify, Grammarly and Diigo.  Learn more by visiting this extensions and apps database from Shake Up Learning. The database can be filtered by category, grade level and subject so that you can find the right extension or app for you!
• Global Connections/PLN
• Top Eleven Follows - We’ve shared several PLN follows in prior months.  Here is a list of our top ten for you to explore:
• http://catlintucker.com/
• http://www.controlaltachieve.com/
• http://alicekeeler.com/
• http://www.controlaltachieve.com/
• http://googleteachertribe.com/
• http://ditchthattextbook.com/
• https://www.edutopia.org/
• http://www.edudemic.com/
• https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/
• http://www.teachthought.com/
• http://www.coolcatteacher.com/
• http://fhsdinnovate.blogspot.com/  :) #selfpromotion
• Feedly - As shared a couple of weeks ago, Feedly helps you keep track of all of your favorite blog and resource follows in one location.  Learn more by revisiting our prior post.

Cheryl’s Summer Surfing Tips

Okay, whew!!! You made it.  Now kick back,  relax and explore some of these great sessions that were at the Gafe Summit in November.  If you missed the Gafe Summit or were there it’s always great to go back and revisit.  There are 2 ways that you can tackle this.  We asked each person that attended to add #onenewthing to a Google Slide Presentation, that was the biggest take away from the Gafe Summit.  If you click on the school icons you will be able to see slides from individuals at each school with their biggest take aways.  The other more comprehensive way is to click on the session time.  Each session that was offered during that time period will be listed with a link to all the materials, presentations and contact information that were shared.  Sit back browse and pick presentations that interest you to explore.

Gafe Summit Resources

Want to get your “Google Game On” this summer?  Check out this Walsh University course taught by Cheryl Kemper.  Google Tools in Education

Contributed by Cheryl Kemper @CherylLKemper @ Kyle Mack @ProfKyleMack   Melanie Zolnier @libary_techer

Curating Content From Your PLN

Curating Content from Your PLN

This Week’s Topic in Focus:

Each month our Digital Learning Team will feature a super tool that is super cool while also super beneficial to your classroom. This week, we are featuring three different tools that you can use to curate content from your PLN; Diigo, Feedly and Google Keep.

When creating a PLN, the sheer amount of content that you interact with can be mind-boggling. You read a great tweet that has content you want to remember for always!  You stumbled on a blog that has realistic suggestions that you want to incorporate into your classroom. You find an article that was meaningful and full of insights that you relate to.You found a rock star blogger and you want to read every single thing that they write! Oh, what to do with all of these knowledgeable people and their amazing resources? How do you organize or curate the content that you want to keep?

There are three tools that could be very useful in the curation of content from your PLN; Feedly, Diigo, and Google Keep. Each tool has definite strengths and depending on your needs, can be used in isolation or together for maximum, professional librarian style curation! Feedly and Diigo offer a free basic account for users, but as always, there are upgraded accounts available. Google Keep is a free component of G Suite.

Feedly: www.feedly.com - At it’s core, Feedly is an old fashioned news aggregator. Select websites, blogs and Youtube channels that interest you and add them to your news feed. Instead of having to remember to visit your favorite websites and blogs each week, you can instead just visit Feedly and review everything you missed since the last time you checked in. What makes Feedly so useful though are the ways you can customize your feeds by category. Your feeds can be categorized into topics such as edtech, innovation in education, classroom management, or frosty beverages to make after a really long day at school. Feedly also has a cool feature called “Boards.”  Boards are digital spaces where you can pin material from your current feed or directly from the web using the “"Save to Feedly Board" chrome extension. These boards are great for when you are working on an initiative and you want to put all of your research material in one place. With the free account, you can create up to three boards. No more desperate searching for that article or blog that touched your soul but disappeared when you accidentally closed your browser! Feedly will keep it all in one place for you.

Diigo: www.diigo.com - Diigo, which stands for “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other Stuff” is a tool that allows the user to store, organize and annotate content found on the web. By using the bookmarking and tagging system in Diigo, you can create an online library or collection of material that is useful and meaningful to your projects and personal learning. Whether the content is from a blog or webpage, you can simply use the Diigo chrome extension and save it to your Diigo library. When saving material, you have the option to add tags for easy organization and retrieval. You can even mark the item as “Read Later” which will then show it as new content when you login to your Diigo library. One of the best features of Diigo is the ability to annotate any content that you find online. Once material has been saved via the extension, Diigo provides tools for the user to highlight specific phrases or content and add personal sticky notes. If you want to do more than just collect URLs, then Diigo is an excellent option for your curation needs.

Google Keep: keep.google.com - Google Keep is a multi-use app that has recently seen some upgrades which could make it a valuable curation tool! Every G Suite user already has a Google Keep account, and you might have even used it in the past to make a to-do list or jot down some important information you didn’t want to forget. Keep’s sticky note feature is excellent because within each sticky note you can copy and paste links, add images and type in your own material. Individual notes can also be shared with collaborators in the same way that Docs, Sheets, and Slides can be shared. There is even a new feature where you can load your Google Keep notes as a side panel in Google Docs. This will allow you to drag and drop items from Google Keep right into the flow of your writing. (See this article by Eric Curts at Control Alt Achieve for more on this). But what makes Keep an excellent curation tool is your ability to save web content to Keep by using the “Save to Keep” extension. After you have found an article or blog that interests you, click on this extension and then “add a label” so that you can easily find it in on your Keep board later. As your PLN grows, you can add new labels to Google Keep at any time! And since Google Keep is always free, you will never need to worry about your curated content disappearing.

Whether you choose to use one of the three suggested tools or decide to travel down your own path, curating your PLN content is valuable and worthwhile! You just never know when you are going to want to revisit something you read, and falling down the black hole of Google trying to re-locate it can be a very frustrating experience! Happy curating!

Contributed by Melanie Zolnier @libary_techer

The Keyword: Google’s Very Own One Stop Resource for All Things Google

This Week’s Topic in Focus:

Each month our Digital Learning Team will feature a connection that we feel exemplifies and supports our mission and goals. Our hope is that you find so much value and worth in that resource that you decide to add that resources to your own Personal Learning Network. Check out this month’s featured item:

Image acquired from: GoAndroid

The Keyword: Google’s Blog

Finding out updates, releases and all other types of Google related news used to be quite a chore.  The outlets for this sort of information never seemed to be consistent and it was difficult to know what was Google generated and what was being produced by non-affiliated sources.  All of that changed last year when Google launched its new one stop blog: The Keyword.  

Any time Google has something cool it wants to tell the world, they post it to this blog!  

• Did you know that Google Earth has just received a massive facelift, and is now entirely web based (yes, you can now use Google Earth on Chromebooks!).

• Have you had an opportunity to explore the Google Arts and Culture site?  Google has created vignettes packed full of rich super high definition images, video, and map integrations accompanied with textual information and links that thread information together in a manner that fosters inquiry and exploration all on an aesthetic but simple web canvas.  Check out the Made in Italy Project as an example. To get an understanding of what I mean by super high definition images, check out The Starry Night by Van Gogh and zoom in.  Notice the violent brush strokes that make his work so distinct as well as the minor cracks that present themselves due to over a century’s worth of aging.

• Did you know that Google Maps, now automatically translates all reviews in your native tongue? If you travel abroad, you will now be able to search for restaurants and other attractions and read reviews from those in the area translated in the English language.

                Image acquired from: The Next Web

• Autodraw, a new tool that uses artificial intelligence to guess what you are trying to draw and then makes a suggestion of related drawings for you to choose from, has not officially launched!  Drawing on your phone or computer has been a slow and painful process, until now.  

All of these tidbits were gathered from the homepage of Google’s blog at the time I published this post.  Because it is a blog, every post is archived by date so that I can easily search and retrieve it for later use.  

You can also surf blog.google by product.  See what Google has to say about Google Docs or YouTube.  Products are not only limited to the icons shown above. Finally, you can surf by topic.  One of those topics is education. 

Regardless of how frequently you visit or what products or topics might interest you most, there will always be some new resource or artifact of inspiration waiting for you at The Keyword, Google’s Official one stop resource for all Google News.  

Would you like to integrate something you see on The Keyword but need some help?   See your DLS to kickstart a conversation - Cheryl, Kyle or Melanie.

Contributed by Kyle Mack @ProfKyleMack