Classroom
First Day
Start Off Positive
We’ve all heard this, but what does it really mean? Yes, we all greet our students at the door and welcome them with a smile on our faces. Many of us have ‘fun’ activities planned in order acclimate our new students to our ways, rules, expectations, and personality. How many of us bust out the technology on the first day? How many of us have students creating something meaningful the first day?
Here’s what we did
- Wrote out all expectations (learning goals, personal goals) on sticky notes and posted them around the classroom. As a group, we read them and talked about them. What I think I will do next year: write these expectations on a Google Form, take their answers and create a word cloud using abcya, wordle, tagxedo, or tagul (my personal favorite).
- Paper Bag 5 ‘W’s – I wish I could site this, as it wasn’t my idea. I read it online somewhere. The idea is to give each student a paper bag with 5 items in it (I put in a pencil, eraser, Hershey Hug, mini candy, and a Smartee). Students answer the 5 W questions (Who, What, When, Where, Why). They then take the bag home, put in 5 items that represent them, and present it in class the next day. A bonus was, I was able to see the quality of their writing in a low-risk setting.
- Students also worked together in the Marshmallow Challenge. I modified it to fit my needs. Students used spaghetti, mini marshmallows and 4 large marshmallows. I was able to see which groups/individuals communicated, collaborated, planned, thought out, and were innovative.
Finally, each student created a Voki to tell me a little bit about themselves. This was a fun way for students to introduce themselves to me. They got to use technology, create something meaningful, and were able to view it online (and show their families). Here is my class and the other class (Mrs. Pursley).
This was a great way to begin the school year! We just finished our second week, and things are going GREAT. I am blessed with an amazing group of students. This may be the best year yet (and that’s saying something as this is my 20th year teaching).
Archive A Classroom
The new school year has just begun, and I have been asked by a few, “How do I delete all of my assignments from last year, and add this year’s class to Google Classroom?”
My answer: Archive the old and create a new classroom! It’s easy to do.
Navigate to your Google Classroom. Find the class you wish to archive. Click on the three (3) dots in the upper right corner. This will bring up a pop out menu. Here you have the choice to ‘Rename’ the class, or ‘Archive’ it.
No worries, you can always refer back to last year’s assignments in your archived classes:
Google Classroom: Save Draft Assignment
You now have the ability to upload an assignment in Google Classroom and ‘Save Draft’; and assign when necessary.
Create an assignment as usual, but instead of ‘Assign’ choose ‘Save Draft’. It will then appear on YOUR wall as ‘Draft’. When you are ready to ‘Assign’ either click on ‘Draft’ or the arrow on the right. Then click the name of the assignment, a pop-out window appears where you can see the settings of the assignment and have the option to ‘Assign’ or ‘Save Draft’. This time ‘Assign’.
Google Classroom: Invite Another Teacher
Today Google Classroom has made yet another improvement! Teachers have been wanting to share their Classrooms with other teachers. Today, Google has given us this opportunity.
Invite Another Teacher
Choose the Classroom you would like to share with another teacher. Once in the Classroom, navigate to the ‘About’ page (1.). Once there the teachers the Classroom have been shared with are located on the left (2.). Notice that the owner of the classroom is listed first. Below the teachers is an ‘Invite’ button (3.). Once this is chosen, you find the teacher you would like to share the Classroom with – within your domain. It will send an Invitation to the teacher. All they have to do is accept.
Submit Group Work
Google Classroom has made my workflow seamless. Recently I had a teacher ask how to have students, who are not document (or slides) owners, ‘submit’ work. I’ll admit, my workflow made my life a little harder. Then, one of my students – Frankie (I told him that he would get a shout out) – simply suggested having the non-owners submit the link for the assignments. So being the collaborative classroom, we gave Frankie a Class Dojo point for helpfulness, and celebrated his brilliance.
How Do Students Submit a Link?
While the students are in their Assignment, they have the option to ‘Add’, ‘Create’, or ‘Mark as Done’.
If your students have been working collaboratively on a project, they most likely have created it within their Drive and shared with others. Now, the owner is the only person who has rights to submit the document. They will do this by choosing ‘ADD’ then ‘Google Drive’ and proceed to find the project.
The non-owners, will need to locate the documents link, and be sure that ‘anyone with the link can view’.
They will then Copy this link in the assignment. However, they will choose ‘Link’ and paste the code there.
Transcontinental ELD
A few years ago a friend of mine, Ruth, contacted me with this crazy (BRILLIANT) idea – to have our students become pen pals. I know, you’re thinking, “That’s not crazy, in fact it’s not even a new idea.” Yeah, I know. You see, my friend lives, and teaches, in Spain – the Basque Country. Ah, now you see how cool this is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_Country_(greater_region)#mediaviewer/File:Euskal_Herria_Europa.png
Ruth had a group of ‘less than enthusiastic’ 6th graders. They had little desire to go to school let alone learn English. She thought if our classes became pen pals (yup, pretty much the old fashioned way), it would motivate them AND get them to practice reading and writing in English. She started it off with her students writing letters on a computer. We shared a Dropbox folder (I said pretty much the old fashioned way) to ‘deliver’ the letters. The result, it worked so well, the next year her students asked when they would get to write to kids in America.
Admittedly, Ruth and I thought it would be a one-off sort of thing that first year. However, last year when she asked if I was interested I couldn’t wait to get it going again. Last year we upped it to 50 students on my side and around 40 on hers. The students shared about themselves and figured out how to take photos on the computer to share on their letters.
This year…
Ruth and I upped our game! Okay, it was all Ruth. She is at a new school and she quickly re
alized that writing to us in English would be a struggle. We had discussed the idea of videos before, but she was up against some rules preventing images of the students from appearing online. So this year, we are sending videos! We are sharing our videos privately. Yesterday, we received our first video from our pen pals. The students were FANTASTIC! Ruth relayed a story about a girl in her class who was so excited, went onto Google Translate to help her get started. The student did all this on her own time! What a great activity this is already turning out to be.
Her students hard work was noticed. My students were impressed with their efforts. They asked if the Basque students were reading from something, because they wanted to be able to read from their notes too. I think they realized how scary the whole thing can be. They were so excited to get started on making a video for them some didn’t even wait for their video to be over before they started asking me when we can start.
Many of my students speak Spanish at home and asked if they could speak Spanish in their video. I said that they absolutely could. I even challenged some of my non-Spanish speakers to learn a few things to say in Spanish. Upon hearing that, a few students went onto Google Translate, while others volunteered to help translate for students. So my students will introduce themselves, in English, and hopefully send an additional message along, in Spanish.
I’m excited to see where this leads.
Google Classroom Evolves
Google has listened to teachers’ feedback yet again. Since Classroom’s Beta rollout last summer, Google has continued to ask teachers what WE want, what would make their product better. We spoke, and they responded…again.
Today Google announced a few improvements based on OUR feedback.
1. Groups Integration
If you use Google Groups, you can now pre-populate classes with this newest iteration.
2. View Deleted Items
It’s a simple on/off toggle switch.
3. Control Class Commenting Feature
When in ‘Students’, you choose whether students can post, comment, or if the teacher is the only one with those rights. This feature will hold true for ALL students in the class. If you would like to control the ability for individuals to post/comment see below (number 4).
4. Mute Individual Students
Every now and then a student tests the waters, and drowns. You now have the option to Mute those individuals. Muted students will not be able to post or comment in the Classroom.
5. Sort Students
Some teachers prefer to sort by last name, while others prefer first name. Google has given teachers the freedom to sort as we please.
6. Downloading Grades
The ability to download ALL assignment grades at once (to CSV file) makes it easier to upload those grades into whatever grading program you or your district are using.
7. Students Can Mark Assignments as ‘Done’
Recently I had my students working on a Presentation in groups. I posted the assignment, but only the owner of the Presentation needed (or had the rights) to ‘Turn In’ the assignment. This left 40 ‘Not Done’ assignments – which looked messy and inaccurate. Now those students can go into their Classroom, and mark the assignments as ‘Done’.
This feature is handy when assigning reading, viewing a video, or other tasks where nothing needs to be handed in.
Student View in their ‘Stream‘. It has marked the assignment as ‘Late’.
The student needs to ‘Open’ the assignment and ‘Mark As Done’.
A pop-out window will appear asking if the student is sure this is the desired action. Notice the student can add a private message to the teacher.
In their ‘My Assignments’ View the student has the option to ‘Unsubmit’. The completion of the assignment is noted in the right corner. It will also be reflected in their ‘Stream’ View.
Google Classroom
My First Dot Day
T
his was the first year that I have participated in International Dot Day. Boy am I glad we did! We first began by reading the book, The Dot, by Peter H Reynolds. It’s a story about a girl who begins to leave her mark, literally, on the world. In art class, she produces one single dot on a piece of paper. With the help of her teacher, she begins to create more and more dots. She explores and experiments with her ideas. And in turn, helps a boy – and us – learn to leave his mark.
After reading the book, we discussed what we could do to leave our mark on the world. Some wanted to open restaurants, others wanted to help animals, and still others wanted to help those in need. They cited helping those with illnesses and those less fortunate. One girl wants to help those who don’t have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, by creating urban gardens and wall gardens.
After our discussions, we were ready to ‘Make Our Mark’! The students eagerly began creating their dots to be placed on our door. This door has been ready for them for the past week.
Originally, I was only going to decorate the door, but then… I copied off the Dot Day paper by ColAR Mix. And again, I’m glad I did. I forgot the pure joy one has when experiencing Augmented Reality for the first time. So many of the students were taken by this, that they went home and downloaded the App for themselves. I had a few come in the next day to tell me all it.
I guess it’s safe to say that I ‘left my mark’ with my students this week.
Nowa Techie 