Friday, November 27, 2020

Friday Matinee: Using Wakelet in Your Classroom

Wakelet is a curation tool that allows you to save items (anything with a link), organize them, tell stories, and share content from around the web (Kathleen Morris, 2019).  Curation, evaluating resources, and collaboration are necessary skills for our students.

It will help you understand more about what Wakelet is if you look at a collection.  Here's a one on (drum roll please . . . 🥁 WAKELET!  Check out these resources, many of which have been written for K-12, but that doesn't mean that they can't be used in higher education.  It's a great way for students to keep up with their research and they can work together in groups to find and organize their information.  Their curated information can then be put into a Google Site, a research paper, a presentation, or a digital magazine as a way for them to show what they have learned.  Here's another one that you can actually add to!

Wakelets can be private, unlisted (only people with the link can find it), or public, where anyone can find it when searching the web.  It's easy to get a link to share a collection or add collaborators.  Wakelets are an easy to share resources with students, differentiate learning, create digital portfolios, and more.

Watch as Holly Clark (she's amazing) shows how to use Wakelet in the Classroom.



Click on the above image to read more!  

Remember to check out our Remote Learning Resources website for more ideas on collaboration.  

Want to know more about how technology is infused into classrooms around the world?  Attend the Virtual FETC Conference in January for FREE!

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Did You Know? Recover Last Closed Tab in Chrome

Have you ever been browsing the web and somehow you click and close a tab that you really need?  How do you quickly get it back?  There's a quick shortcut for that!



On a Windows computer - Control-Shift-T
On a Mac computer - Command-Shift-T

It's a life saver!  Here's a video on how to do it.

And use Control-T to open a new tab!  Command-T on the Mac.

Want to know more about how technology is infused into classrooms around the world?  Attend the Virtual FETC Conference in January for FREE!

Friday, November 20, 2020

Friday Matinee: Creating a Backchannel With Google Docs

Having a discussion is an important part of a class but it can be difficult when you are teaching either totally online or using the hybrid model.  Fortunately there are digital tools that can be used for backchannel discussions, including a shared Google Doc that everyone in class has the right to edit.

Use this Google Doc that you can copy (FILE>MAKE A COPY) for classroom discussions.  I like this document rather than just using a Doc without any added guidelines because you can see not only who asked the question, but also who responded and what their response was.  It also keeps the questions and answers together for easy viewing.  Multiple people can also answer the same question.  

A suggestion is to have one student per week or class period who would be in charge of the backchannel document.  They would monitor the questions and answers, and bring up questions in class that might need clarification.

I would keep the original document as a master and then make a copy of it and rename it every time you use it.  All you need to do is change the title and date at the top.

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Did You Know? Undo Send in Gmail

Have you ever clicked send and then realized that you forgot to add something to your email?  Gmail has an undo send that gives you 30 seconds to stop that email from sending.  You can then make the change or add additional information and click send again.





Need help?  Want to know more?  Contact Patti to set up a 1:1 session via Zoom!

Friday, November 13, 2020

Friday Matinee: Online Learning With Powerful Thinking Routines

Dr. Catlin Tucker teaches high school, but the thinking routines she shares in this blog post can easily be used in higher education.  Created by Project Zero at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, these templates and routines encourage students to be intentional thinkers and to share what they know, their perspective, what they wonder, how their thinking has changed, and more.  Each thinking routine can be modified and adjusted to meet your needs, your student's needs, and your subject area and are great for engaging students both online and in the classroom.  Go to the Project Zero website to learn more about the routine's purpose, application, and find tips for starting and using the routine in your classroom.  There are other routines on the Project Zero site that you can check out.


The templates that Catlin created are shared in Google Slides, but can easily be downloaded as PowerPoint files.  Just go to FILE >Download > and choose Microsoft PowerPoint.

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Did You Know? Version History in Google Docs, Slides, & Sheets

Did you know that you can name different versions of your Google Doc?  As you work in your Doc, it automatically saves different versions of the document.  It's kind of like "save as" in MS Word, and you can access those different versions at any time.  To view them, go to FILE>VERSION HISTORY (see attached image).  You can name previous versions or the current version - or all of them!  This allows you to quickly refer back to them.  Simply view the versions, click the 3 dots next to a version, and choose to name it.  Choose a name like first draft, 2nd draft, final draft, etc.  This doesn't change the name of the file.




Once in version history, click the date and time to view that version of your document.  To name it click the 3 dots and choose "Name this version" (image below).




⭐ Are you looking at a document that your student worked on as a group?  You'll see who did what in the document in the version history.  Each collaborator's input will be a different color.  Check out the image below:





Friday, November 6, 2020

Friday Matinee: Google Jamboard for Online Collaboration

Google Jamboard is a physical digital whiteboard (our college has one!) but it is also an online digital whiteboard that is collaborative.  Online you can share, view, and create Jams with your students to engage them during class time.  All "jams" are saved in Google Drive and are accessible via Google Chrome.  You can add images, sticky notes, text, and drawings.  

Let's try it out!  Open this file and scroll through the frames at the top.  You can have a total of 20 frames in one Jam.  Go ahead and add to each frame.


To create a file, just go to Drive>New and find Jamboard, find Jamboard in the waffle, or type jamboard.google.com.  Like a template, but need to make a copy?  Open the template and go to the 3 dots in the upper right and choose "make a copy".  You can download PDFs and images from there as well.  Use the Share button to get a link or share via email.  There's an app for your phone or tablet that will let you add files from Google Drive.

 Want ideas for using it in your classroom?  Matt Miller's article includes 20 ideas for using it in the classroom.  

Here are a few idea templates that you can copy and use.


Let's Jam: Google Jamboard Resources in a Wakelet collection.  We'll keep adding to this wake.

You'll be jamming in no time!  Here's a video if you want to learn more.

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Did You Know? You Can Pin Tabs in Google Chrome


If
 you are like me, you have lots of tabs open in Google Chrome!  To keep yourself organized and make it easy to find the tabs you use the most, you can pin them and they will move to the left side of the Chrome window and stay there.