Duolingo-My New Year's Resolution App

Google Play sent me an email this week with a list of best apps for 2014.  Of course I was curious, but was surprised when the app Duolingo was listed under Education.  How had I not heard of this before???  Well it is not your typical iPad app that would be used in the classroom.  It is a Language app that allows you to learn Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Irish, Dutch, Danish, and English-FREE.  After further investigation I learned that is was Apple's 2013 App of the Year.

Download in iTunes 

                                                                    Download in Google Play

I know basic Spanish, so I tried it last night and was thoroughly impressed! It tailors lessons based on your current knowledge and drills skills that are weak.  I can image this as a great assistant in Language classes as well as an ELL environment.  You are even able to tell the app the minutes per day you are willing to dedicate to learning.  

So this is going to be my New Year's Resolution App-I am going to commit to five minutes per day and see how my Spanish improves.  If it is anything like last night, the interface is fun and engaging...I will spend more than the five minutes I am allocating.  

Happy New Year and here is to a new year of learning!

Google Classroom

My absolute new favorite tool for this school year is Google Classroom.  If you are a GAFE school, classroom is an absolute must.  I have been working with teachers and students  in all of my 6-12 schools and they all love it as well.

Your students will need an institutional Gmail to log into classroom.  Once logged in, they join your class, just as we have seen in the past with other online type classes.  What I really like about Classroom is how it seamlessly integrated all things Google.  Listed are my main talking points:

1.  When adding content, it is better to have a Google product rather than Word, PowerPoint, etc.  Although you can add these types of documents, if you want to the students to be able to view, answer questions, and return-using Google "stuff" just makes everything easier.

2.  All things are stored in Drive in a folder called Classroom, which is created for you.  That way you can access student work without having to log into Classroom.

3.  As with any other program, the Desktop version is more powerful and is less glitchy, but I have used it on iPads very well with a strong wifi signal.

The following link in my Prezi that I will present at two future conferences, it gives more of an explanation of Google Classroom and how to use it.

Happy Googling!

http://prezi.com/btrtd9tkjb9p/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

It's new to me

Now that school has been out for two weeks and all of my summer PD has been taught, I used today to catch up on all the new fun "stuff" out there.

Two of my top three finds are Google related. The first is that you can upload a PDF or image in Google Drive and convert it to an editable document. Who knew??? Finding gems that are right under my nose makes me happy, because I can put them to use immediately. See link below for step by step directions.

PDF Conversion

The next Google find was streamlining Google image search. The results can be refined to images uses and size to name a few, and my favorite is the ability to search for transparent images, which is super handy. See link below to adjust your Google image search settings.

Google Images Search

Lastly my new graphic creation tool is Canva. I have had so much fun creating graphics for my iTunesU icons. The feature I like best is the customizable image size, so the graphic will be the exact dimension needed for iTunes U. My next project will be to create a new blog graphic. My favorite is the one I created for my summer PD on Prezi and QR codes.

I hope everyone has a restful relaxing summer!

Google Drive Feature Now In Gmail

What a nice surprise when adding an attachment today, that a message popped up and said you can now attach files directly from Google Drive in Gmail.

Next to the paper clip (and you have to hover over it), the menu expands and gives you the option to attach a file from Drive.  Nice job Google. Once again your have made using GAFE even more seamless.

Teachers using technology in the classroom: don't sell yourself short

So you now have various options to use technology in your classroom, but do you fear that the students "know more that you"?  I will let you in on a secret, they really don't.  One thing I have heard teachers say is that "the kids know more than me".  Depending on the situation, that may not be true.  Yes, they can Tweet, Snap, and Text at rapid speeds unknown to most of us over the age of 30......but how is that going to benefit them writing a paper in college, finding valid research information, creating a bill for a customer, or being able to remember a password that is used for more than five minutes to get a social media account.  

I have been working with students using technology for the past 14 years of my career and more heavily this past year.  They still need to be taught and issued guidance and you as the teacher have more knowledge than you are giving yourself credit.  Students still need you to tell them that they need to use the same type of font throughout the entire paper and believe it or not how to center the title of said paper.  I saw a student this year using a 24pt font to write a paper.  It seems that many of them do not know how to press the "shift" key when typing the letter "I".  You have the knowledge to direct them to valid and reliable research sites.  And what about those students going directly into the workforce or wanting to own their own business, would the ability to type an invoice or create documents with proper page numbering be beneficial?  

One situation I encounter in my job more than any are students that do not know passwords to any account they have.  As teachers, you can tell them how may times a day in your job you have to remember a password just to gain access to your work life.  

These may seems like basic skills, but they are basic skills that many students do not possess, but you do.  You have a lot to offer students and becoming a learner yourself will help you get more comfortable with using technology on a regular basis.  

If you are curious about my graphic at the beginning of my blog, I used http://doppelme.com.  A free, user friendly site to create custom avatars. 

Happy New Year! New ideas for a new year.

My week began by delivering a cart of iPads to our JROTC program at the high school.  Once I started talking with the instructors about the possibilities that could be done with these powerful tools, the ideas began to flow.  From taping instructional videos to delivering classroom presentations, the instructors began to realize the limitless possibilities, very excited to begin work with this group.

The new photography class needed an outlet for students to display their portfolios of work for their teachers to grade.  My suggestion was a free website builder wix.com.  They have beautiful templates that are user friendly.  It allows for students to build wonderful online portfolios of their photography (or any subject) that their teachers can grade, plus they can use for future college submission or employment opportunity.

Dropbox, if you haven’t begun trying to use a paperless approach when students have a device in class, then I strongly encourage you to give it a try.  I had the opportunity to work with an English class this week setting up Dropbox for each of them to use on their school issued Nook device.  It does take a little work on the front end to set up the sharing process, but once in place, it will shave off countless hours in the copy room.

Two new apps that I like are Path On and Web to PDF.  Both have a cost associated with them, but if you use the app "Apps gone free", they will let you know when apps are free for the day. I got them both on free days.  Path On adds cool text designs to pictures and Web to PDF allows web pages to be converted to a PDF document.  I used this with a colleague this week and we were able to print a web page form in the original format.  Worked beautifully!
Links:
Web to PDF
Path on

My "zen" thought for the new year:

One thing that I have learned when working with technology is to take a break and quit trying to solve the problem with the same solution that is not working, lunch can provide clarity and problems are easier to solve after the mind has a break.