Teaching with Technology

Using educational technology to enhance the learning environment and increase student engagement!

Mystery Post – Teaching with Technology

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Happy Monday! We’re almost halfway through the month of May, which means I’m only a little late with my monthly mystery post. My bad! You know how it is at this time of the year – we’re rushing to finish our content, meeting deadlines, and struggling to maintain energy and motivation to continue making learning awesome for our students. Hopefully, this post reaches you before the end of your school year so you can put the tips to use! Without further ado, here’s the May mystery post from Teaching with Technology!

DRUMROLL …

The topic of the May mystery post from Teaching with Technology is …

CHROME SHORTCUTS!

That’s right! Using shortcuts in Google Chrome is super-easy and a time-saver for teachers AND students. Here are a few of my favorites …

–> Insert a hyperlink by highlighting the word/phrase/image, selecting CTRL + k, pasting or typing the link. (CMD + K on Mac)

–> Reopen a closed tab with CTRL + t (CMD + t on Mac)

–> Create a new Doc, Form, Presentation, or Sheet using the “.new” option. Simply type form.new in your Chrome browser to create a new Google Form – easy peasy!

–> Insert a comment with CTRL + ALT + m (CMD +OPT+ m on Mac)

–> Center align text or images in a Google file with CTRL + SHIFT + e (CMD+SHIFT+e on Mac)

–> UNDO recent action with CTRL +z (CMD+z on Mac)

What are your favorite shortcuts to use? Share your best practices!

I hope you have a fantastic week! Thanks so much for reading 🙂

Edpuzzle Updates – May 2019

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Happy Monday! I opened up Twitter this morning and noticed an awesome new update that will help teachers continue to reach all of their students! Closed captioning is now available on Edpuzzle!

This is a fantastic addition that will not only help students with audio impairments but also those who prefer to “see” content as opposed to only hearing it. This will also help those who forget to bring their earbuds and would rather not use the community “Petty Beats” headphones that I keep in my classroom 🙂

I haven’t geeked out about Edpuzzle in quite some time, but it is truly one of my FAVORITE tools. If you’ve read Illuminate, you already know that!

One of my favorite features of the “assignment” option in Edpuzzle is that I can prevent my students from skipping through video content with a simple click of a button — or, a toggle of a slider. This same assignment box also allows teachers to post the assignment on Google Classroom if your roster is tied to a Classroom section. This option is especially awesome for younger students who may not be able to easily follow multiple steps to reach a destination.

Now, teachers can also turn on closed captioning for their videos from this same assignment box. WOOHOO!

I hope your week is off to an awesome start!

Thanks for reading 🙂

10 Days to Illuminate Learning

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Hey, all! I hope your week is going great and you’re digging deep to find the energy and motivation to be awesome for your students! I know I’m struggling this week – we’re on a weird testing schedule where 3-4 classes each day are an hour and a half in length to accommodate state testing guidelines. We’re used to 45-minute classes 🙂 I don’t know about you, but I’m upping my already impressive caffeine intake in an effort to keep learning fun and engaging for my students!

May is also a pretty exciting month for me – we’re coming up on the ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of the launch of Illuminate: Technology Enhanced Learning! I CANNOT believe it’s been a year already, and I’m so incredibly thankful to all of you for not only reading my blog but also for your support of Illuminate! You guys are AWESOME!

To celebrate the upcoming end of the school year, I’m launching a new type of book study – 10 Days of Illuminate – designed to encourage teachers throughout the last days of the school year. Here’s the plan:

Starting Monday, May 6, I’ll post a “share square” with options from each chapter of Illuminate. Choose what you’d like to create/share, post a link to your product (if applicable), tag someone you think needs to read Illuminate, and be entered to win a Starbucks gift card! I’ll pick a winner on May 17, which also happens to be my last day of school 🙂

Grab your copy of Illuminate and get ready to end the year on a high note!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Google Classroom Update – Topics

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Happy Monday, friends! I hope your week is off to a fantastic start! My oldest daughter had two soccer games on Saturday in two different states and we celebrated a family friend’s confirmation and the birthday of a friend of my youngest daughter on Sunday. So … I think my weekend happened? Today is feeling like the Mondayest of Mondays! I realized when I opened Google Classroom this morning, that I haven’t shared one of my favorite updates with you all! Hopefully, you’ve seen it by now, but just in case … here it is!

One of the main complaints that I heard from my Google Classroom session participants last month when I mentioned the “topics” feature on Classroom was that they really missed the ability to click the topic on the left side of the screen. While it is a great addition to group assignments, materials, and announcements by topic, the list of topics on the left of the stream was definitely missed.

Miss that feature no more, my friends! Check out the GIF (gif? jif?) below to see how it looks!

If you decrease the size of your browser, you’ll notice that you see a dropdown menu of topics instead of a topic list on the left side of your screen.

Another update that Google announced is that new assignments will be posted first instead of at the bottom of the stream – thank goodness!

I hope your coffee (or whatever caffeinated beverage you drink) is strong today!

Thanks for reading 🙂

3 Reasons to Read Illuminate Before the End of the Year

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Hey, all! Happy Friday to you and happy first day of Easter Break to me! I am READY for a break – I’m sure you know exactly how I feel. It’s the end of the year, teachers and students alike seem to be hitting a brick wall and motivation can be lacking. Do you need something to light a fire in you to end the year with enthusiasm and energy? Illuminate is the book for you! Here are my top three reasons that teachers should read Illuminate before the end of the school year:

1. Motivation (XP, Take What You Need)
Oh yes, motivation. That thing that helps people push forward toward a goal – I remember that! It’s no secret that motivation can wane quite a bit toward the end of a semester, especially when we’re nearing the end of the second semester of a school year. Summer is getting closer and the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter! A few years ago, I learned about the concept of gamification of learning at a conference and immediately thought, “this seems like a lot of extra work.” I fell into the same motivation slump that my students were experiencing – teacher facepalm moment. When I finally jumped into the gamification pool, the results were awesome! Students love earning XP for completing assignments, “bonus missions,” and winning games. During 4th quarter, I find myself “throwing XP around like confetti” to help give my students that extra boost of encouragement. Check out Chapter 8 of Illuminate for a guide to getting started with XP and gamification!

2. Virtual Field Trips (Google Earth, Nearpod)
My students LOVE going on virtual field trips. Heck, I LOVE going on virtual field trips! Really, though … who doesn’t?! It’s fun, educational, and super engaging for students at all grade levels. As a high school Social Studies teacher, we use virtual field trips almost daily to connect with places, people, and concepts we’re learning about. Are you discussing the branches of government? Check out the White House, Supreme Court building, and the Capitol building! Learning about French monarchies? Tour the Palace of Versailles! The possibilities are endless and the result is an engaging component to your lesson, using technology. Interested in learning more about taking your students on virtual tours, but also helping them create their own virtual reality? You’ll love Chapter 2 of Illuminate!

3. Demonstrate Learning with Memes (IMG Flip, Google Drawings)
Memes … they’re EVERYWHERE! We see them, and so do our students. When we can connect pop culture with class content, student engagement can go through the roof! As a year-end activity, my Government students create memes that describe concepts they’ve learned in class. I preface the activity with this: “pretend that you’ve just met someone who only speaks ‘meme’ and you must explain the concept of ________ to them using a meme.” The products that my students create are fantastic! Definitely check out Chapter 3 of Illuminate for more tips on using memes in your classroom, but also how to encourage your students to create representations of what they’ve learned!

Have you read Illuminate, yet? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Try This Tomorrow Podcast – Fight End-of-the-Year-itis

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Hello and happy Friday! I’m writing to you today from the comfort of my kitchen table – yup, that’s right! I took the day off! This hardly ever happens, but honestly, I’m not really “off” (are teachers ever really “off?!”) … I’m at home catching up on grading, guest posts for other blogs, videos for my upcoming online course (yay!!!), and finally sharing Episode 3 of my podcast, Try This Tomorrow. Check out the show notes from this episode and be sure to listen to Try This Tomorrow: Talks with Teachers where you get your podcasts!

Episode 3: 3 Tips for Fighting End-of-the-Year-itis

Teachers and students alike often find themselves dragging a bit during the fourth quarter of the school year! In my case, the weather is getting warmer, the sun is out later into the evening, the birds are chirping, and my daughters just want to go play outside and have fun – same, ladies. SAME. However, my students and I are not only finishing up our curriculum but are also preparing/reviewing for standardized testing – that glorious time of the year that NO ONE likes. So, I’m trying to keep things engaging in my classroom by using fun review games like Flippity, Heads Up, Kahoot, Quizizz, Quizlet Live, and these fun activities, as well as “throwing XP around like confetti.”

I also share a tip in this episode of something that I’m doing to shift my mindset from “I have to …” to “I’m thankful for …” It’s something simple and quick that I can do in the morning when I get to my classroom or before I leave my house.

I hope these tips from Episode 3 will be the dry shampoo you need to help you push through the end of the school year! The dry shampoo part will make more sense when you listen to the episode – ha!

As always, thanks for reading & listening 🙂

Encourage Collaboration with This Padlet Format

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Happy Monday! It’s sunny and 70 degrees in my neck of the woods, which makes staying motivated in the classroom a challenge for my students AND their dear teacher 🙂 Please tell me I’m not alone! This will be the first summer in about 5 years that I haven’t taught a face-to-face summer school class, and I’m really looking forward to being able to sleep, drink coffee on my patio, and take afternoon naps at my leisure during our break! As my dual credit students were discussing the impact of medieval thinkers last week, I decided to create a “grid” Padlet for them to use to share information and to encourage collaboration – I was met with groans and complaints because they wanted a different Padlet format! Here’s what happened …

 

Padlet is a fantastic tool for collaboration (I geek out about it quite often) and is used almost daily in my classroom. Padlet offers many formats that are great for classroom use including the “wall” and “grid” options that post student contributions on the wall in compact squares.

While this is a great option, students aren’t able to collaborate with each other on posts that they’re working on. One person is basically designated the “typer” while other people in the group feed information to their classmate. While this is a great option, my dual credit students prefer to use the “shelf” option in Padlet because they can all contribute to the topic/individual/concept that they’re assigned to research. 

Needless to say, when I created and shared the “grid” instead of the “shelf” Padlet with them … it wasn’t pretty! “Mrs. Petty! Change the format to the one where we can all type!”

My bad, friends. My bad!

Fortunately, I can quickly switch the format of any Padlet that I create. I changed the format to “shelf” and all was right with the world once again.

Crisis averted.

How do you use Padlet in your classroom?

Thanks for reading 🙂

April Mystery Post – Teaching with Technology

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It’s April! Can you believe it?! I feel like this school year has literally flown by and I’ll be dipping my toes in the Gulf of Mexico sand before I know it! We’re only a few days beyond the beginning of the month, so I’m not SUPER late in sharing the Teaching with Technology mystery post … right?! Without further adieu, here it is!

DRUMROLL, PLEASE….

The topic of the April Mystery post from Teaching with Technology is …

FLIPPITY!

Yes! I chose a tool to highlight this month because it is just darn awesome! Last month, I had the opportunity to share tips and strategies for using Google Classroom to enhance Social Studies instruction with teachers in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Indiana, and Ohio (5 cities in 5 days!) and the BIGGEST takeaway seemed to be the awesome opportunities that this FREE tool provides!

I sufficiently geek out about Flippity in Illuminate and my students love it, too! If you haven’t checked into Flippity before, be sure to put this on your to-do ASAP list. Here are just a few ways that we use Flippity templates in my classroom:

  • BINGO review games
  • Random name picker (It’s a wheel! Super fun!)
  • Bracket creator (fantastic for our Presidential and Amendment Bracketology – more coming soon!)

One of my favorite features of this technology tool is that the templates are Google Sheets! That’s right – activities you create through Flippity are stored in your Google Drive — WOOHOO!

Flippity also offers a Google Sheets Add-on, but I prefer to create my activities using the actual site.

That’s it! Definitely check out Flippity and add this great tool to your technology treasure trove!

Thanks for reading and happy April 🙂

Remembering My Why – Teaching with Technology

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Happy Saturday, friends!! You made it to the end of the week! I’m writing to you today from my kitchen counter, feeling so glad to finally be home after a whirlwind week of speaking at seminars throughout the eastern part of the United States. When I say whirlwind, I really mean WHIRLWIND week! I flew from STL to Chicago and then to Rhode Island on Sunday, presented an all-day session in Providence then rode to Bristol, Connecticut. I presented an all-day session there on Tuesday, then hopped on a plane to Indy … we arrived super late Tuesday night – or super early Wednesday morning! – and I presented my session there. Then, I rode to Columbus, Ohio Wednesday night, and presented my session there on Thursday. Thursday afternoon, I rode to Cincinnati, delivered my presentation on using technology in the Social Studies classroom, rode to the airport, flew to STL where my husband and daughters picked me up for the ride home!

WHEW! What a week! I’ve been SO incredibly blessed by this opportunity and am absolutely ecstatic about the fact that I’ve been able to spend my spring break week sharing something I’m passionate about – using technology to enhance Social Studies instruction.

Check out the basics of what I shared this week …

  • Using technology like Nearpod and Edpuzzle (along with their Chrome extensions) to enhance learning in the classroom
  • Getting the most out of Google Classroom in the Social Studies classroom
  • Time-saving tips for using Chrome including extensions, bookmarks, right-click options, and keyboard shortcuts
  • Tips and tools for encouraging students to create representations of what they’ve learned
  • Fun and effective formative assessment
  • Strategies to easily implement effective assessment capable learning practices
  • Tools and resources for using and creating BreakoutEDU activities for your classroom

It. Was. AWESOME!

I’m so fortunate to have been able to share these presentations with so many amazing educators, and I can’t wait to do it again! Even though I’m absolutely exhausted, I feel rejuvenated at the same time to go back into my classroom on Monday and try to continue designing an engaging learning environment for my students. Being with these great educators helped me remember my “why” for becoming a teacher. It’s not the money or the fame – we all know that, though – ha! It’s because I want to have a positive impact on the future through each of my students. Here’s a quick video that I share at the end of my presentations to help teachers remember their “why” and also see why knowing their “why” (sorry for the “why” redundancy!) is so important.

As you’re watching this video, pay attention to how the people around the man singing respond when he knows his “why.” Look at the impact he has on those around him when he knows and feels his “why.” How awesome is that?!  When we know and remember why we do what we do, we have a greater impact on those we serve, whatever our path.

What’s your why?

Thanks for reading 🙂

 

Create Smartphone Apps with Google Sheets

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Hello, friends! Do you ever stumble upon an app, site, or tool and have no earthly clue how you got there, but are totally thrilled that you did? That is 100% what I’m feeling right now as I write to you today about Glide – a super fantastic tool that lets ANYONE create smartphone apps with Google Sheets WITHOUT CODING. That’s right. Create an app without coding. YAY!!!

Here’s how it works:

  1. Go to glideapps.com and sign in with a Google account. Since your new apps will be made from an existing Google Spreadsheet, you’ll need to be signed into a Google account.
  2. Select your Google Spreadsheet, and Glide will import the data, creating a default app that you can manage.

Each sheet in your Spreadsheet will be a different tab on your app. You’ll notice in the screenshot below that my Spreadsheet has three sheets, which means my app has three tabs.

Next, you’ll be able to customize your app by selecting “edit sheet” on the left, or by clicking on an icon on your home screen and choosing “add component” in the top right corner of your screen. Add the option to comment, take notes, send an email, or link a URL to a button.

Each column of your spreadsheet will be a different property of your app. The sheet of the app listed below shows two columns on the “unit” tab of my app. When users see the Foundations and Formations of Government unit on the app, they’ll see the Bitmoji image I included as a link on my spreadsheet. Awesome, right?!

When you’re ready to launch your app, simply click “open app” at the bottom of your app creation screen. You’ll see the option to share the app or open it on your device by scanning the QR Code.

When you scan the QR Code, you’ll see a pop-up with directions on how to add your new app to the home screen of your smartphone.

That’s it! You’ve created an app using a Google Spreadsheet with NO CODING. You won’t be able to download the app from your App Store unless you opt for one of the premium account options that Glide offers. I’m a teacher, so I chose the freebie!

Any time you need to update your app, just log into your Glide account, click on your created app and then “Edit Spreadsheet.” Back on your Glide screen, you’ll be asked to reload your Spreadsheet which lets Glide add your updates to your app.

It’s that simple!

I’m excited to add “create your own app” to the options on our Apply HyperDoc page! Since Glide works with a Google Spreadsheet, our students can also collaborate with their peers on app creation – again, with NO CODING required! Super cool!!

Have a fantastic rest of the week and thanks for reading 🙂