Author

Lori Gracey

Lori Gracey currently serves as the executive director of the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) and is responsible for training technology directors, administrators, curriculum supervisors, librarians, and teachers across the country. Since 2009, she has led TCEA in membership and revenue growth, helped to pay off their building and purchase a new, larger building, and implemented new conferences, partnerships with other associations, and professional development opportunities for members and non-members. She serves more than 75,000 members and oversees a staff of 20. Lori has served on the board of the Texas Society of Association Executives and SXSWedu, and she has served as the Regional Program Chair for the ISTE 2017 and 2021 Convention in San Antonio. Lori has 28 years of experience in education, with 22 years as a curriculum and technology director.

Conference on the Future of the Library

by Lori Gracey September 28, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

On Thursday, October 6 from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Central time, there will be an amazing, free opportunity for librarians from around the world to gather virtually and discuss the future of libraries. Attendees will engage in conversations with civic, social, and education innovators who have made the library the hub of learning. The conference schedule will include both keynote presentations and crowd-sourced sessions and will be held entirely online via Blackboard Collaborate web conferencing.

School libraries have seen tremendous change over the past few years with the coming of age of makerspaces and the librarian as technology expert. This free conference sponsored by the American Library Association Center for the Future of Libraries provides a powerful way to ensure that your library continues to serve the changing needs of your students and staff. Advanced registration is required, and registrants will receive the live session links, as well as links to the recordings. Make sure you register today!

September 28, 2016 0 comments

Seven Reasons You MUST Attend TCEA 2017

by Lori Gracey September 25, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

I’ve attended a lot of conferences in my educational career: 34 TCEA Conventions & Expositions, seven Tots and Technology conferences, four System Admin conferences, and literally hundreds of other great learning events put on by various associations and groups. I strongly believe in the power of educators meeting together to share expertise and common problems, in the need for networking and finding solutions together, and in the desire to continually “sharpen our saw” so that what we do in classrooms and schools every day makes a meaningful difference for kids.

I know that all of you reading this blog believe the same. That’s why I want to encourage you to attend the TCEA 2017 Convention & Exposition in Austin February 6-10, 2017. More than just a convention, this event every year is a major learning experience for dedicated educators from around the globe. And it’s just downright fun, too! Here are the top seven reasons why you simply MUST attend!

Reason #7:

Everyone wants to hang out with rock stars. And at the TCEA convention, we’ll have the most famous ed tech stars in the world. Accost them in the bathroom, stalk them in sessions, and put a face to a name of your Twitter have-to-follows. This is your chance to rub shoulders and learn from the best and the brightest gurus in our field.

Reason #6:

TCEA 2017 You need more swag for your classroom because you’ve already gone through all of the things you bought from Oriental Trading Company for your students for the entire year. TCEA’s amazing exhibitors and the wacky board members who present the First Timers’ sessions always have the best toys and giveaways that will restock your supply closet and make you the most popular teacher on campus.

Reason #5:

There are still a couple of iPad apps or Chrome extensions that you don’t know about, but might be able to use with your kids or staff. TCEA’s presenters are carefully selected for their outstanding knowledge and up-to-date expertise in the integration of all kinds of technologies, including apps, extensions, websites, Web 2.0 tools, social media, and much, much more.

Reason #4:

In the most steps competition with your campus, you are lagging far behind the PE teachers and coaches. Come walk the Austin Convention Center with its 881,400 square feet and its six city blocks, and you’ll leave them lagging in the dust.

Reason #3:

You won’t feel like a nerd or geek with the crowd at TCEA. Everyone there will have multiple devices, numerous dongles, and will understand your frantic, desperate rush to find an electrical outlet in the next five minutes.

Reason #2:

You’ve been thinking about repapering your dining room, but can’t really afford new wallpaper. At the TCEA convention, you can grab handfuls of ribbons to wear from your badge all the way down to the floor, and then use them afterwards to redecorate.

Reason #1:

Whether you are an administrator, a librarian, a technician, a teacher, a paraprofessional, or a parent, you want to make the world better for the children you come in contact with each day. Learn from others with the same goal at TCEA 2017, discover new and effective ways to engage students, and ensure that your daily work is based on best practice and the latest research.

I look forward to seeing each of you in Austin the first week of February!

September 25, 2016 0 comments

Educational Trends

Oh, the Possibilities with Chrome Experiments!

by Lori Gracey September 19, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

I was playing around the other day and wandered across the Chrome Experiments website. The next time I looked up, four hours had passed. That’s how unbelievable this site is.

What Is It?

Chrome Experiments is an open-source project started by Google in 2009 to showcase web-based technologies like JavaScript, HTML5, WebGL, Canvas, and more. It’s now become an open source community where developers can submit their own projects. While all of that is great, what makes it so amazing, at least to me, is the fact that just a few years ago, we would have had to have separate software pieces for each of these experiments. Today, they can all be run in the same Chrome browser software that we use to search the web and do email.

The experiments are available to everyone. There are more than 100 projects, with more being added every day. You can filter them by date, popularity, and technology, which makes it easy to get lost in the sheer wonder of what smart people can do with innovative technology.

What Makes Chrome Experiments So Amazing?

Past experiments that have gone on to have a life of their own and that you may have heard about or used yourself include the Zygote Body, a detailed 3D model of the human body; Google Gravity, where what goes up must come down; Chrome Music Lab, which is a wonderful way for children to learn all about music (a site that I liked so much I wrote a separate blog about it); and Browser Talk, where your browser takes on a persona and talks to you. But they are eclipsed by some of the new creations coming out of the site. I’ll share just a few of my favorites with you:

100,000 Stars shows you the real location of nearby stars. You can zoom in and out and see some pretty neat visualizations of space and distance. The music playing in the background is also great.
Typatone creates music while you type. Once you’re done typing, it puts the notes selected by your keystrokes into a beautiful song. (I must confess to playing with this one for a long time!) Downloading a song costs $0.99. But you can embed the song into a website at no charge.
WebGL Water Simulation allows you to play with the properties of water. You can cause ripples and waves, move a sphere in and out, and much more. I found this so fascinating that it led me to doing research on how waves function. A similar experiment is Fluid Particles.
Ancient Earth provides a way of looking at how the physical features of the Earth have changed over millions of years. The site includes a ton of information about each age and makes it easy to jump to different time periods or events, like the first coral reefs or dinosaurs. This experiment really helped me better understand the evolution of the Earth over time, making a complex subject simpler.
Inspirograph is just like the old toy that I played with as a child. Using different sized gears, you can create wonderful artwork.
Webcam Toy has more than 70 filters that you can apply to photos you take with your webcam. I can easily see this being used by students to create avatars of themselves or just to express mood for a particular piece of writing.
GeoGuesser is a geography and deduction game for one or multiple players. It shows you a photo from Google Maps and asks you to guess its location. You are awarded points based on how close your answer is to the actual location. This would be good to get students thinking about what they see, what clues can they gather from the photo, and what conclusions can they draw.
And finally, there’s the Peanut Gallery. Strange as it sounds, this experiment lets you create silent film clips with your voice. Select from a set of classic film clips and then add your own voiceover, which is turned automatically into text on the screen. This was so much fun! But I can also see it being used by students to create summaries of learning, creative book trailers, and more.

Do yourself a favor and spend some time playing and learning with the Chrome Experiments. But if you do, make sure you don’t have anything scheduled for several hours.

September 19, 2016 0 comments

Advocacy Leadership Special Needs

Attorney General’s Opinion on SB 507 Not Favorable to Schools

by Lori Gracey September 15, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

Attorney General Ken Paxton

This blog was updated on October 11, 2016 with additional resources.

Previously the Commissioner of Education, Mike Morath, requested an opinion from the Texas Attorney General regarding the implementation of Senate Bill 507 relating to the use of cameras and video recording equipment in special education classrooms. The opinion was released on September 13, 2016. The AG’s opinion does not bring good news for Texas schools. The summary of this opinion is below.

If a parent, staff member, or board member makes a request for video equipment to be placed in a self-contained classroom or other special education setting in which a majority of students in regular attendance are: (1) provided special education and related services; and (2) assigned to a self-contained classroom or other special education setting for at least 50 percent of the instructional day, then this equipment must be placed in all classrooms in the district that fit this description.
A “staff member” cannot be narrowly defined as only those actually working in special education classrooms as described in (1) above. He uses the definition of staff as given in the New Oxford American Dictionary: “All the people employed by a particular organization.” Thus, any staff member can make the request to install video and audio recording equipment in classrooms as described above.
A school district can discontinue operation and maintenance of a camera if a setting in which the camera has been placed no longer fits the description as defined in (1) above.

The Attorney General recognized that some legislators did not mean SB 507 to be interpreted this way, However, he referenced several Texas Supreme Court rulings that indicated that a legislator’s intent does not override the plain meaning of the words used in the bill. He recognized that this law will have large financial burdens on school districts, but the only remedy would be for the Legislature to amend the statute. TCEA will continue to work with the Legislature to make SB 507 less onerous for school districts.

The current Commissioner’s rules related to SB 507 can be found here.

September 15, 2016 0 comments

iOS Tips and Tricks

iOS 10 Features You’ll Want to Use

by Lori Gracey September 14, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

(New content was added to this blog on September 23, 2016.)

Apple released their latest software update, iOS 10, on September 13. Like most of their updates, it has some new features that you will definitely want to take advantage of. Here are some of my favorites.

Get Rid of Those Annoying Apple Apps! – We can finally delete the apps that Apple has forced on us for years. This includes Contacts, Maps, Podcasts, and Stocks. Once deleted, if you want them back (?), then you can just download them again from iTunes. There are still some Apple apps, however, that cannot be deleted, including Health, Messages, Safari, and the Clock app.

View Two Screens in Safari – If you want your students to compare two websites and so need to have two Safari windows open at the same time, you can now do that with iOS 10. There are several ways to enable Safari Split View once you have the app open:

Drag a tab to the side of the Safari screen.
Tap and hold a link from a website and select Open in Split View.
Use Command and N on the keyboard to open a new screen.
Tap and hold the Tabs button and select Open in Split View.

Find Your Car – If your car has Bluetooth or CarPlay, the Maps app will now automatically display its location, along with notes you make to yourself about where you parked (like garage level). You can also ask Siri “Where’s my car?” and she’ll give you directions to it.

Sort Your Mail – It’s now easier to sort the email that comes into your mailbox. Go into Settings — Mail — Swipe Options and select Move Message as your Swipe Left option. Now, in your inbox, swipe left on any email and be presented with the option to move it to another folder, archive it, or six other choices. After you’ve moved a few, Mail will start to offer suggestions on where you should file the message, which will save you even more time.

Magnify Your World – For people like me whose eyesight is not quite as good as it used to be, the new Magnifier setting in Settings — Accessibility is fantastic. When turned on, it uses your device’s camera to magnify things. To access it quickly, just triple-click the Home button.

Get Rid of Unwanted Email Subscriptions – iOS 10 attempts to identify emails for which you have subscribed and now gives you an unsubscribe banner that’s easy to see (no more searching for the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email). Just tap the banner to automatically unsubscribe. (Of course, you wouldn’t want to do that with any email coming from TCEA!)

Mark Up Your Photos – Ever wanted to draw on a photo you’ve taken to illustrate a point? Now you can. The Photos app uses the same Markup extension as Mail does (which lets you annotate or draw on an image in any email), allowing you to draw on your screenshots or images, add callouts, and more. If you don’t like what you’ve drawn, you can erase it with no changes made to the photo and try again.

Get More Sleep – Inside the Clock app, there’s now a Bedtime button that will help you get more sleep. Answer a few simple questions about how much sleep you think you need and what time you have to get up in the morning, and your device will now remind you when to go to bed to get enough zzz’s. It features a nice selection of reminder tones and a good, but basic, sleep analysis of whether you are going to bed on time regularly. I can see this being really handy for young children and teens.

Help for Those with Special Needs – The new update includes some very nice accessibility additions, which is amazing, considering that Apple is known for accessibility features on all of its devices. You can read an explanation of them here.

Use Third-Party Apps Inside Maps – Now you can use third-party apps, like OpenTable for reservations, inside the Maps app. To turn this feature on, go to Settings — Maps and toggle the switch to On for any apps that you want.

Access Street View – The free Google Street View app will now work on your iOS devices.

Have Your Voicemail Transcribed – Once you receive a voicemail message, the system will take a few minutes to try and transcribe it. Once it’s finished, just tap the message to expand it and you’ll find the transcription.

Empower Siri – Siri is now stronger than ever with apps that integrate inside it. This makes it even easier to have Siri call you a cab, leave a message, or make a reservation for you.

There are a lot of other new features in iOS 10, especially for the Messages app. But this list should give you enough to get started with. And remember that the update is always free from Apple. So what are you waiting for?

September 14, 2016 0 comments

Good Teaching Leadership

A Must-Have Free Resource for Educators

by Lori Gracey September 12, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

At the recent Tots and Technology Conference in Frisco, I was surprised to see how many educators are still not familiar with the wonderful world of Twitter. Begun in March 2006, Twitter was created as a social media site. Just ten years later, there are more than 320 million people using it worldwide.

“Every second, on average, around 6,000 tweets are tweeted on Twitter, which corresponds to over 350,000 tweets sent per minute, 500 million tweets per day, and around 200 billion tweets per year.” (Source: Twitter Usage Statistics)

While it may have originally been just a way to share what you’re having for lunch with others, it’s grown into something much more meaningful. I myself use it several times a day, every day, to find resources and get answers to questions. But even if you don’t want to have a Twitter account and tweet out yourself, you should still use it. And here’s why: You can find amazing resources, tips, tricks, apps, extensions, answers to questions, and learning ideas on Twitter. It’s all about how you search.

Finding What You Need

To start using Twitter as a resource without creating an account, follow these easy steps. We’ll take as our example that we’re looking for ideas on using Kahoot! in the classroom.

Go to the Twitter website.
In the top right of the screen, you’ll see a Search button. Type in “kahoot! ideas”.
What is returned to you is any time the words “Kahoot!” and “ideas” were used in a Tweet. You could limit the results more by searching for “kahoot! kindergarten”, for example, to find ways that kindergarten students and teachers are using Kahoot!

This type of search will work for any topic that you are interested in.

Searching with Hashtags

Another way to find resources and ideas on Twitter is to search for common hashtags. A hashtag is just a way to categorize Tweets by keyword. This article has 60 of the most common educational hashtags. Find one you’re interested in, click it, and all of the Tweets with that hashtag in them will be pulled for you. If you don’t see a hashtag that you want, just create your own and search to see if others are also using it. I personally often use #leadership, #STEM, #teacherPD, and #EdTech to find relevant information.

More Ways Twitter Can Help You

Take a look at the Twitter screen shot to the right for a minute. I’ve done a hashtag search for #FutureReady, but this will work any time you’re on the Twitter home page and with any Twitter search. Across the top are some other ways to find great information on Twitter.

Top shows what Tweets are currently the most popular. It’s the default view.
Live will show you the most recent Tweets on the topic. This is great if your students are looking at a current event and want to see the latest news and opinions about it.
Accounts will show you other Twitter folks to follow who are Tweeting about your topic. In order to follow someone, you must have a free Twitter account. But you can see a person’s Tweets without following him/her, if you want. In the Search bar, type in “Richard Byrne” (the name of a well-known ed tech guru) or “rmbyrne” (his Twitter handle). Now you can see everything that Richard Tweets without having a Twitter account. Ask other educators who they follow on Twitter to add to your list.
Photos and Videos will each show you Tweets for that hashtag that include photos or videos.

You don’t have to be a contributor in order to take advantage of the wealth of knowledge and resources that are available on Twitter. Of course, I would recommend that you eventually join the social revolution and begin sharing your expertise with your peers by creating a free account and posting what you and your students are learning. But for now, you can just relax and take in what others are sharing.

September 12, 2016 0 comments

Leadership

Habits of Effective Principal Leaders

by Lori Gracey September 5, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

The role of the campus principal has changed drastically over the past 20 years as the education system innovates and technology becomes an integral part of learning. Moving from a manager to a true leader role means that additional skills must be in place in order to be successful as a leader. What are those habits that today’s administrator needs most?

Create a Culture of Innovation

Educators must be free to try new ways of teaching today in order to meet the needs of a diverse group of learners. It is the principal’s role to create an atmosphere on campus that encourages innovation and gets rid of the fear of failure. The principal can best do this by trying new things himself, failing in front of his faculty, and then trying again. He can reward and praise those who are trying new approaches to teaching and learning and motivate those who are less ready to change or even try.

Emphasize Teaching and Learning

The effective leader must be the person on campus who removes any and all roadblocks and interruptions from teaching and learning time. Whatever it takes to provide as much as time as possible in the classroom must be done. This may mean using technology to replace daily announcements, limiting times when students can be pulled from class, and scheduling fewer school-wide assemblies. In addition, the principal must ensure that professional development time is focused on improving teaching through the active study and discussion of sound pedagogy and best teaching practices. Other topics that must be covered, such as blood-born pathogen training and teacher handbook rules, should be available as online training that can be completed at the teacher’s’ leisure. Flipping the faculty meeting or using short videos of important announcements that staff needs to know can save time for more important engagement with the improvement of teaching. Be relentless in focusing on what matters most: how content is presented to and mastered by students.

Share High Expectations

The effective campus leader has high expectations for himself, his staff, and his students and shares these with everyone. Research has proven the power of positive expectations. So as the principal, don’t be shy about ensuring that all of those involved in the learning know what your expectations are and that each individual can and must achieve those. Make sure that this does not become a rote motto, however, but is instead something that you deeply believe in and live by. Model what you expect to see on a daily basis.

Use Data to Make Informed Decisions

Data has been touted as the savior of schools recently. But it’s important to remember that it’s just a tool. The effective principal uses data of all kinds (and not just testing information) with his staff to make decisions. He doesn’t use it to criticize or demean the efforts of teachers. And the data is always used in combination with shared opinions of the staff and what they think is happening.

Embrace Innovative Approaches

The use of technology to support, enhance, and enrich teaching and learning has proven benefits. The effective campus leader embraces the use of technology in both the classroom and by leaders and supports teachers in their efforts to use it. This includes not just the physical equipment, but also the different mindsets and approaches around technology use, including STEM, maker, breakout, blended learning, and more. A principal must be familiar with these new ways of teaching and encourage his teachers to try them as appropriate, but does not have to be an expert in them.

For more thoughts on being an effective campus leader, check out this blog on Three Tips for Equipping and Empowering Educators. And consider taking part in the 21st Century Administrator certification program, where you will develop strategic leadership skills to ensure that effective and engaging educational technology learning experiences are being provided through changing classroom instruction to match the needs of today’s students.

September 5, 2016 0 comments

Technical Support

Working with Your Technical Support Staff

by Lori Gracey August 28, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

“Matt, my computer’s doing weird things again. Can you take a look at it?” I asked my Director of IT and Communications recently. “Have you tried rebooting it yet?” he responded, as he always does. That typical response immediately launched me into a standing joke about how, as an IT professional, he didn’t really know how to fix any computer system at all, but only knew how to tell users to restart them.

That’s just one of many common misconceptions about the folks who keep our hardware, software, and networks running in spite of what we as users do to them. It’s sometimes hard for us “normals” to know how to work with these gifted individuals. Below are some common myths and ways to work better with these critically important people in our educational system.

Myth #1: Like bats in a cave, system administrators and network experts prefer to work in the dark in small, enclosed spaces. Surprising as it may sound, those of a technical bend have been seen in sunlight and do enjoy being outside sometimes. Try to include them once in a while in a staff outing or event. And let the light of your gratitude help to keep them out of the dark.

Myth #2: Working alone with a bunch of machines is their idea of heaven. Those who have a technical brain really enjoy working with other people, including those whose brains are not technical. They do love sharing the latest geeky tidbit that they’ve learned with their peers, but also like to talk about non-technology topics, too. Include them in the latest gab about new movies, politics, or great restaurants.

Myth #3: All they need to be happy is pizza, Red Bull, and junk food. While technicians have been known to make do with bad food during high-stress times (like the start of school), they will eat vegetables like everyone else. They really appreciate home-made food and will happily keep all of your technology working for a make-from-scratch dump cake or casserole.

Myth #4: Those individuals who keep everything working for us are really aliens from another planet and don’t think like the rest of us do. While it is true that technicians tend to think more logically and perform better in problem-solving scenarios that anyone else, they are not aliens. They are just different! They may sometimes have difficulty understanding what we are saying or what we as educators are trying to accomplish. But it’s our job to explain things to them and make it clear why we need a certain website unblocked or a new app added.

Myth #5: Technology geeks are born knowing everything there is to know about any technology, from the copier machine to the wireless router to the newest drone. While I’m sure they wish this were true, the fact is that technical support members spend long hours in professional training and learning on their own. They are constantly updating their skills and knowledge bank. Thank them for the dedicated time they spend on keeping up in an ever-changing field.

Myth #6: Technical experts are only good at talking to their technology; they can’t communicate with humans at all. The truth is that IT pros can talk to normal people. However, they often prefer different modes of communication. They are better at asynchronous methods, like email, instant messaging, and group chat systems, than they are at talking face to face, especially in front of a group. So don’t get upset when they email you instead of dropping by to answer a question or update you on a repair.

Myth #7: IT guys (and gals) often use work time to play with their gadgets instead of solving problems. If you see one of the technicians busy on his phone instead of repairing your printer, keep in mind that he may be watching a YouTube video on how to fix the problem. And it’s important to know that the geek seeks inspiration, or at least something to occupy the lizard brain, while his higher thinking chews on tougher problems.

The best way to support your technical staff is to provide them the opportunities to get together with their peers and learn how best to keep your hardware, software, and network running. Send them to the two-day System Administrator and Technical Support Conference held October 27-28 in Austin. This learning opportunity offers useful and practical sessions on a variety of topics of interest to those managing technology in schools and universities, including:

Network Security
Emerging Technologies
GAfE Implementation
iOS Device Management
Windows
End User Support
Network/Wireless Optimization
Chromebook Support
BYOD Best Practices

In addition, there will be lunch provided, vendors with solutions for their problems, time for them to discuss relevant issues with their colleagues, and techy door prizes. Keep your geek happy and productive and register him or her today!

August 28, 2016 0 comments

Chromebooks Google Tips and Tricks

It’s a Chrome World!

by Lori Gracey August 23, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

For those educators using the Chrome browser, life is good. Add-ons and extensions abound that allow you to individualize the web experience however you want, for both yourself and your students. That makes Chrome a powerful tool in any teacher’s tool belt.

To make sure you have the best tools available, here are some Chrome goodies that you may want to add.

Picsho – Create photo galleries for you and your students to use from the millions of photos shared on social media each day. You can search by social network and by hashtag to find exactly what you need and remove any questionable images you don’t want.

Usecubes – Create pixel art from your imagination and share them with the world. You can even 3D print them, if you want.

Goo Create – Take Usecubes up a notch and use this artist-friendly HTML5 tool for creating interactive 3D images.

Rizzoma Topics – Help engage all of your students in the discussion and learning with this great extension. You can post polls, as well as documents and images that students can comment on.

Animaker – Animated Video Maker – This extension is lots of fun as students create animated videos by dragging and dropping characters.

To really ramp up your Chrome game, consider taking the online Chromebook Certification (Level 1) course. The course emphasizes the use of the Chromebook in the classroom and includes both Chrome and Google Apps tools.

Itch – The Scratch Teacher Dashboard – If you are having your students program using the free language Scratch, then they will love this extension. It provides tutorial videos that play as students try what is being shown in Scratch.

MindMup – This is an excellent mind mapping tool that integrates with Google Drive or Dropbox. It also includes real-time collaboration. Another excellent brainstorming tool is Coggle. It includes many of the same features.

Piktochart – Create amazing infographics that really tell the story with this easy-to-use extension. Some free templates are provided (more than 300 with the Pro version) and you can publish the completed work to social media or download it as a graphic.

Robust Audio Recorder – Capture up to three hours worth of audio stories, vocabulary practice, reading, interviews, and more with this simple extension.

Padlet – The web version comes to Chrome as a powerful extension, combining visual bookmarking, videos, notes, images, and more in a collaborative environment.

If these aren’t enough extensions for you, join us the first Thursday of each month for Get Your Google On webinars (free to members) and discover more. Or check out the tried and tested Chrome apps that TCEA recommends in this extensive list (also free to members).

August 23, 2016 0 comments

Chromebooks Google Tips and Tricks

Updates to Google Classroom, Forms, and More

by Lori Gracey August 17, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

As another school year gets ready to begin, Google has announced changes and updates to a variety of its offerings. Most of these are welcome and will make learning a little bit easier this year.

Google Hangouts on Air

The first announcement came yesterday when they let us know that, effective September 12, they will be discontinuing Hangouts on Air and are instead encouraging people to move to YouTube Live or their new Duo app (available free for Android and iOS). While this may not be something to thrill your heart, it will help to combine two products into one and make it easier to schedule and host video conferences/discussions.

Google Classroom

For Classroom, Google now includes summaries of student work that can be automatically shared with parents by teachers. The summaries (or classroom announcements) can be sent daily or weekly, depending on what you prefer. This will make that home/school connection even stronger. There are also a few updates to the Classroom mobile app. Now it will allow you to annotate documents, turning them into whiteboard-like screens. You can use the annotations to mark papers, grade assignments, highlight mistakes or excellent work, and demonstrate concepts. In addition, the teacher can now add topics to posts and allow students to filter their own streams for topics of interest to them.

More Google Goodness for the Classroom

Google has also released Cast for Education, a free Chrome app that lets educators share their screens wirelessly to a projector. This is another great way to make the teacher more mobile and get him/her away from the front of the room while teaching. It’s very easy to use. Just install the app, give your device a name, and invite your students to cast. A GAfE account is required.

For Forms, Google has now added the ability to include images in questions or in multiple-choice answers. This is especially great for math, social studies, and science educators who want to have students focus on complex concepts that resonate better in graphics than in text.

If you’re using the Google virtual reality program Expeditions, you’ll be delighted to discover more virtual field trips have been added. Using smartphones paired with inexpensive cardboard viewers, Expeditions brings the world to your students with more than 200 trips now available.

Google continues its strong support for teaching and learning. And we definitely appreciate that!

August 17, 2016 0 comments

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