Padlet is an amazing tool for classrooms. This interactive “cork board” has opened so many opportunities in my classroom, and has drastically changed many of my activities…for the better 🙂
Google Forms: Pre-fill a Form for your Students
Google Forms are awesome. They just are.
The ability to link responses to a Spreadsheet and then manage that data is an indispensable tool for teachers.
A few weeks ago, I completely geeked out on Form creation…creating rubrics, self-evaluations, needs assessments, Bellringers, and more.
What if you want students to complete the same form daily, or at least routinely. Pre-populating the form can help your students be more efficient with their form submission.
One of my favorite uses for Forms is the self-evaluation or group evaluation. After a project, assignment, test, or basically anything, I think it is extremely important to reflect upon performance…whether it be teacher or student.
Instead of creating a new self-reflection form for each assignment/activity, simply create a pre-filled form, and share that URL with your students via email or Google Classroom.
Of course, you could share the form without the pre-filled option with your students and tell them what activity/assignment they should include. However, many students and most adults may struggle with typing the exact phrase you provide…and you may eat up valuable class time repeating yourself 🙂
Note: Sharing a pre-filled form URL with your students is not like creating a new form, or creating a copy of the existing form. Therefore DOING SO WILL NOT create a new spreadsheet to collect data!
See the screenshots below…sharing the pre-filled URL will save you so much time!!
Thanks for reading 🙂
[wp_ad_camp_2]
Share to Classroom Extension…Awesome Addition, Google Classroom!
Today, the “Share to Classroom” extension for Google Classroom was pushed out to students in my building.
After reading about the new extension, and reading about teachers’ experiences on Twitter, I admit I was a bit hesitant about the purpose and effectiveness of this tool.
However, my fears were assuaged today when I tried the extension with my students.
I opened a website I needed my students to see, selected the Share to Classroom extension, and chose “push to students.” I was immediately met with “whoa, what just happened?!” and “did you just hack into my computer?!”
As soon as I selected “push to students,” the website I shared immediately popped up in a new tab (which was pushed to the front) on their screen.
Awesome, right?!
Creating Rubrics with Google Forms
Today, my Government students began what has become one of my favorite projects: Creating Your Own Government.
Students are given an imaginary scenario in which they have to establish a functional government, including how to address issues such as building shelters, creating jobs, establishing an educational system, etc.
Students are also required to draft a constitution complete with established rights of citizens, as well as limits placed on the government.
The conversations I heard today while I was monitoring were absolutely fantastic, and I can’t wait to see what they students come up with!
I decided to try something different this year, when it comes to the grading of these projects. I typically grade the projects during presentations, but it always seems as though I’m scribbling notes on a rubric while attempting to keep up with the content and the nuts and bolts of the presentation.
This year, to make life easier, I decided to create a Google Form and use it as a rubric.
No, my students will not complete this Google Form. This is not a document for them to complete, rather an easier way for me to grade their presentations.
I took all of the criteria that would normally be on a rubric and transferred that to a Google Form. As you most likely know, one of the beautiful features of Google Forms (other than the relatively new ability to change the theme…which is awesome!!) is that it automatically ties to a Google Sheet where all of the student responses are collected.
Now, I can be more involved in being an active audience member, as opposed to scribbling down information on a paper rubric, that I will most likely misplace!
Why didn’t I think of this sooner???
For the next rubric I make, I will most likely add an “Additional Comments” section under each criteria.
I’m quickly going gaga for Google Forms and all of the awesome organization that accompanies this tool.
Hope your school year is off to a wonderful start!
Thanks for reading 🙂
Using Bookmarks in the Classroom
If you’re like me, you probably have students access multiple websites for your class.
I haven’t quite found one single website that has every feature I use in my classroom…and that’s ok!
Sometimes, students have difficulty organizing and navigating a variety of websites during a class period. Students often become frustrated with me because I typically keep about 10 tabs open at once.
That’s normal, right? 🙂
To prevent frustration and panic among my students, I’m trying a new route.
Thursday, our first day of school, students entered my classroom and were told to access eight different websites.
Responses ranged from, “when can I close out of all of these tabs?” to ” having so many tabs open freaks me out!”
After I showed my students how to sign up and navigate each site, I told them to bookmark each page. The main response was, “but I have so many bookmarks already!!”
To calm fears of a crowded bookmark bar, I showed may students how to create a folder for their bookmarks, and then how to add those super important pages to that folder.
On Friday, when my students entered the classroom, I told them to access Google Classroom for the day’s activity. I overheard a conversation that went something like…”didn’t you make a bookmark folder like we were supposed to do yesterday? It’s so much easier…”
Mission accomplished 🙂
If you’d like to share use this super simple strategy with your students, please click here to access the PDF instruction sheet!
Seriously, why did I not think of using bookmarks in the classroom before? Wow…
Hope your year is off to a great start!
Thanks for reading 🙂
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 11
- Next Page »
