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Gamifying PBL: Smashboard Edu

by Miguel Guhlin March 19, 2019

written by Miguel Guhlin

Want to increase students’ retention of content? Want to help students leave school prepared for deeper learning, higher-level thinking? Then Project-Based Learning (PBL) aligns wells to your goals. Extensive research over time supports PBL as THE best response to tough questions. In this blog entry, we’ll revisit some of the research. Then we will explore a new tool that facilitates gamifying PBL.

Revisiting the Research

No matter where you look, whether in K-12 or higher education, PBL stands tall. Want to become a doctor? Problem-Based Learning (also abbreviated as PBL), a close sibling to project-based learning, is a pedagogical practice. Structured PBL units empower students to “create conceptual models” to solve a problem. From K-12 to medical school, PBL is the go-to multi-disciplinary system. It encourages self-directed learning, targets higher-order learning, and engages students (source: Journal of Biological Chemistry).

PBL has found its way into many classrooms. You can see my own journey with PBL in this wakelet on Exploring PBL.

PBL

Key Components of PBL

Various researchers have cited the following elements as essential to PBL success. These elements include:

Starting with a real-life problem that is high interest and aligned to the curriculum
Structured cooperative learning that is interdependent and features team rewards and accountability
More than one opportunity for assessment, differentiated learning outcomes, and presentations
Connecting learners to other learners via a learning network.

Each of these points aligns to the ISTE Standards for Students as well.

Aligning the ISTE Standards for Students

Consider the corresponding ISTE Student Standard Connection for each point above:

Element #1: Real-Life Problem
- Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful, or imaginative solutions.
Element #2: Cooperative Learning
- Global Collaborator: Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.
Element #3: Differentiated Learning Opportunities
- Creative Communicator: Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.
- Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others
Element #4: Connected Learners
- Digital Citizen: Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.

Blending technology into PBL makes problem solving, learning, and solution making a digital reality. Aligning it to the ISTE Standards for Students makes it a fantastic opportunity. Yet in the fast-paced video game environment our children learn in, how can we make PBL even more?

Gamifying Problem-Based Learning

Many of our children play games that engage them with problems. The Pew Research Center has made some relevant findings that gamifying learning stimulates interest and deep engagement with content. John Seelye Brown, as cited here, describes the power of accidental learning. Accidental learning is learning on the go, solving problems as they appear. Accidental learning relies on failure. “The chance of failure is high, but the cost is low and the lessons learned are immediate,” says Brown.

Smashboard EDU is “problem-based learning & the design-thinking process smashed into a gamified experience.” Their goal is to be encourage creative solutions to a relevant, real-world problem. It follows a simple process:

Prep: Pick a Problem to Smash!
Setup: Each group of three or four receives a set of cards and a device and selects a note-taker.
Play: Follow the steps for each card in order. Use the SOS card ONCE to ask for help from the facilitator.

Watch this short video for an overview.

Let’s assess this new website. We’ll use the key elements to successful PBL to guide our exploration.

Element #1 – Real-Life Problem

“My 6th graders have smashed energy conservation, ecological concerns, and social awareness issues,” says Marilyn McAlister (@MarilynEDU). Does Smashboard Edu present students with relevant, real-life problems aligned to curriculum? Yes, it offers a variety of pre-set problem cards. You can also rely on authentic situations via online websites. Read more about Marilyn’s experiences with SmashboardEdu:

One of our favorite problem-solving structures is #SmashboardEdu. It is a gamified process for solving problems. Over the course of two class periods, students identify the problem, research, solve, share, and reflect. Shout out to Ed Tech Team leader, @DeeLanier, for his fabulous bank of resources here. We used this slide deck to guide our sessions.

Elements #2 and #3

Does Smashboard Edu enable you to use digital tools to empower collaboration and communication? The answer is a resounding YES. Consider this Flipgrid where students share their reflection of the problem-solving process. Meta-problem-solving can be a real aid to students working together.

PBL

Empowering students depends on how they use Smashboard Edu. Learners may use it as a springboard to produce creative artifacts, as shown in the image below.

Image Source: https://twitter.com/cmsbusiness1/status/1096404176744169472

Element #4

Smashboard Edu makes it possible to have students learn in an interconnected, digital world. This is less about Smashboard Edu and more about the tools (e.g. Flipgrid) that students choose to use. Encouraging students to work well together, in the classroom and across classrooms, is important.

March 19, 2019 0 comment

Designing a Better Future to Tackle Big Problems

by Guest Blogger March 11, 2019

written by Guest Blogger

As Program Director of IDEAStudio, a forward-looking makerspace at the West Houston Institute, part of Houston Community College, my challenge is to leverage our resources to intersect the emerging disciplines of innovation, design, and entrepreneurship with the traditional disciplines of the arts and sciences to create a robust and active learning environment where students and faculty can tackle problems with real-world relevance.

One of our flagship programs is IDEAS Academy. For the past two years, we’ve partnered with the adjacent Alief Early College High School to work with a cohort of approximately 20 dual-credit seniors to empower them to develop the mindsets and skill sets used by today’s innovators, designers, and entrepreneurs. The goal is to help prepare them to succeed in the rapidly changing global landscape of the 21st century.

We chose EdgeMakers’ “Creativity & Innovation” course to introduce students to the initial concepts and terminology for innovation and to learn how to combine creativity with purpose. This course provides a framework for innovative thinking that we felt could be adjusted over time as the design challenge lifted off the ground.

The Spring Challenge

We teamed up with the Houston Mayor’s Office of Innovation to provide a strong community tie-in. Last spring, participating students were challenged to propose ideas to connect the city’s neighborhoods with fresh and healthy food. Over the course of the semester, program facilitators introduced students to community stakeholders, subject matter experts, and local entrepreneurs to provide mentorship and real-world perspectives during the research process. These brainstorming sessions prompted student teams to develop projects that addressed the four pillars of food security:

Access — Students’ interviews with local food banks uncovered a disconnect between the hours volunteers typically are assigned to operate the food banks and the availability of those who need the services. As a solution, students developed the concept for Basil Baddies Groceries to connect those in need to local food pantries in ways that promote dignity and convenience through the use of an online platform.
Availability — Students researched hydroponics and aquaponics and developed a customized A-frame hydroponics system to experiment with natural and convenient ways to manage food production and promote the development of community food sources in urban environments.
Utilization — Students in this group focused on the preparation and eating of healthy food and developed an initiative entitled “Wakanda Food Do You Like?” in reference to the popular “Black Panther” movie. They organized a smoothie competition as a playful, gamified approach to encourage healthy and nutritious food choices by teenage consumers.
Sustainability — This group created a website to tell the story of their work with food sustainability, as well as to document all the solutions developed by the IDEAS Academy cohort so their ideas could carry into the future.

All the student teams participated in a culminating event dubbed “The Foodture” last April in IDEAStudio where they unveiled their projects to their peers and the wider Houston Community College student body. Many community members who had participated as speakers and mentors also were in attendance. This led to some lively engagement and provided a valuable learning experience for all involved. Check out the video of students discussing the value of the spring project.

In Pursuit of Sustainable Development

This past fall, the 2018-19 IDEAS Academy cohort built on the knowledge acquired through the initial pilot program and applied it to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Leveraging the EdgeMakers curriculum as a framework and springboard for this project, students participated in activities such as “100 Ideas (to Save the World) in 10 minutes” to generate many ideas from which they could choose a few to be developed further over the semester. This approach allowed for a more rapid ideation process and further strengthened their creative skill set. They then split into groups to develop prototypes addressing several of the SDGs, including the following:

Carbon Capture — Students designed a device that attaches to cars to help reduce car emissions by extracting water and carbon, keeping it from entering the earth’s atmosphere, and allowing for future re-use.
Wildlife Protection — This group focused on the dangers our human-made environment poses to wildlife. They learned that patterns of bird migrations help determine dangerous obstacles to wildlife. A building on the HCC campus became identified as a window hazard, so students implemented Zen curtain vertical design modifications to prevent birds from flying into the glass.
Insect Protein — Students learned that many populations in the world use insect protein as a food source. They developed a food truck concept to demonstrate insect-based cuisine to members of campus.
Dating Culture – Inspired by recently introduced commercial products, students developed their own solution to identify the presence of a “date rape” drug in cocktails with an invention that took the form of a quartz necklace.

Civics Education

This spring, as part of our ongoing partnership with the Houston Mayor’s Office, IDEAS Academy students are partnering on a design challenge with members of local government to create a “bubble up” approach to the 2020 census. Together, they are working with library faculty to conduct research, including the design of surveys, to surface attitudes and beliefs that will help them craft a communication plan to engage their peers in this civic responsibility. By using social media and brand messaging developed by students, local government hopes to engage underrepresented communities to get a complete count of all residents.

Designing a Better Future

We are experiencing a time of productive disruption across the education landscape. Active learning environments are becoming an essential and necessary improvement to the teaching process. Getting students involved in important issues through real-world collaboration is helping them develop solution-oriented thinking while preparing them for future community involvement and success. Flexible curriculum such as that designed by EdgeMakers acts as framework to give direction and purpose to student creativity. The recent success of projects at IDEAStudio in Houston is just the beginning of what appears to be an exciting and bright future for innovation in schools.

Jordan Carswell is Program Director of IDEAStudio, the makerspace at West Houston Institute, an innovation of Houston Community College. Connect with Jordan on Twitter @jordancarswell.

March 11, 2019 0 comment

Chromebooks CTO/CIO Cybersecurity Google Tips and Tricks

Protecting Confidential G Suite Files

by Miguel Guhlin February 11, 2019

written by Miguel Guhlin

“I’m working with a few schools. They only wish to send password protected files. The files will go outside their organization,” says John M., a Google Certified Trainer*. “From a Windows machine, that’s fine. But we’ve moved to a Chromebooks-only environment. How do you add a password to exported files, like DOCx or PDF, that get sent via email?” In this blog entry, we’ll explore several no-cost (free) options for protecting file attachments. Ready to take a closer look at the problem and possible solutions?

The Problem

In organizations with Chromebooks only, how do you encrypt files? On a Chromebook, you can’t run traditional programs available on Windows or Mac. This means you have to find web-based solutions to share files and encrypt. For schools and organizations in Europe, John points out GDPR is a concern. Before we go into possible solutions, let’s review what GDPR is.

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a new legislation. It applies to all companies who collect, store, and process any data. While focused on data belonging to European Union citizens, it has wider effects since GDPR applies to all companies across the world. This means that it affects Americans, as well as EU citizens. GDPR went into effect on May 25, 2018 (source: video). American companies must comply, even if enforcement in the United States remains unclear.

Exploring Solutions

How do you safeguard sensitive information in a G Suite EDU environment? How do you add password protection to a file and send it via email in Chrome OS? To organize solutions, you first have to ask yourself a few questions:

Do I need to protect the content of the email itself?
Do I need to protect the file attachment?

Let’s look at a few tools you can use.

Protecting Email Message Text

If you need a solution to protect email content, the actual body of the message, use one of the following. Each offers AES-256 level encryption.

g suite encrypt

One solution to explore is Paranoia Works Text Encryption Tool PTE). It is a browser-based tool that makes it easy to encrypt an email’s message text. The interface works in an simple way and safeguards the content with encrypted text. It offers these steps:

Encryption:
1. Set a password.
2. Write or paste a text into the Unencrypted Text area (green bordered).
3. Press the Encrypt button.
4. An encrypted text will appear in the Encrypted Text area (red bordered).
5. Copy the encrypted text and use it however/wherever you want.

Decryption:
1. Set a password
2. Write or paste an encrypted text into the Encrypted Text area (red bordered).
3. Press the Decrypt button.
4. A decrypted text will appear in the Unencrypted Text area (green bordered).

For Chromebooks that can run Android apps, you might want to get the app. The app is Secret Space Encryptor for Android (shown below) via the Google Play Store. See the online tutorial.

An alternative text encryption tool you can use is FourmiLab’s browser tool. This latter tool provides a streamlined view (shown below) without documentation.

g suite encrypt

Your organization should standardize on either PTE or FourmiLab’s solution. Save either tool to the Chromebook for local use, even when not online. What’s more, you can use these within Google Docs, too. That is, you can choose to encrypt the text in a Google Doc, but you will have to copy and paste the content in and out of a Google Doc.

The main benefit of these tools is that they are free, no cost options.

Protecting Email File Attachments

John’s original question focused on files exported from G Suite. This could include DOCx, PNGs, JPGs, PDFs, PPTx, and many other formats. G Suite for Education provides for several via the SAVE AS option. If you want to protect these files in transit via email to external parties, how can you do that? How do you encrypt them so that only the recipient, to whom you’ve provided the password, will be able to see them?

g suite encrypt

One web-based tool you can use includes FileLock.org. This works in a similar way to PTE and FourmiLab. You access a website, select a file on your Chromebook (e.g. DOCx you’ve saved from a Google Doc), and then encrypt it. Then you attach the encrypted file to your Gmail message (as shown below).

g suite encrypt

Note: Be sure to use secure passwords for encrypting text or files. You can use any variety of online tools to create unbreakable passwords. Password Generator, LastPass Password Generator, GRC Generator, or Packetizer will work fine.

Protecting Confidential G Suite Files

As you may imagine, there are a host of commercial solutions you can use to safeguard G Suite files. Both Boxcryptor and Cryptomator offer enterprise level solutions at different prices. You can also take the added step of preventing the sharing of confidential information. The main benefit of the solutions offered here is that they are free, open source, and available at no cost. Combine them with an organizational procedure to support effective use.

*Question adapted with minor readability edits from one posed to Google Certified Trainers (GCT) Google group.

February 11, 2019 1 comment

Cybersecurity Digital Literacy

Four Steps to Creating Cyber Secure Students

by Guest Blogger February 8, 2019

written by Guest Blogger

It’s almost impossible to overstate the impact of technology on the lives of students today. With the ever-increasing popularity of social media platforms and online games like Fortnite, children are spending longer than ever before online.

Despite this, children and teenagers are often left with little-to-no understanding of basic internet safety and cybersecurity practices. Rarely covered in school, students at risk from a range of threats. From cyberbullying and screen addiction to inappropriate content and stolen personal information, it’s vital that educators help students become more cyber aware. This article will provide four steps to help create more cyber secure students.

1. Introduce the Issue Early

As many as 43 percent of children between the ages of two to four in the US now have access to a tablet. This makes teaching students about technology and cybersecurity from the start of their education essential. To explain the issues to young children in a way that they’ll understand, stay clear of complicated jargon and use real-life scenarios to explain how the internet works and the risks associated with it.

Advise your students against doing anything online that they wouldn’t do in real life. This could include a comparison between accepting a friend request from a stranger and talking to them online to talking to a stranger on the street. By using familiar concepts, your students will be able to grasp the fact that the internet, like real life, poses certain dangers that shouldn’t be ignored.

2. Teach Best Practices at School

While using technology in school, ensure that students carry out basic cybersecurity best practices. This way, it’s more likely to become a habit that’s maintained when outside of the classroom.

Creating strong passwords is a vital step to securing your information online. To help educate students, make sure that any accounts accessed on school devices require a strong password which contains symbols, uppercase and lowercase letters, and numbers.

Another essential piece of knowledge that students need to be armed with is that their activity online does not simply disappear. Posts on social media accounts and other digital activity will quickly build up. Though many students will not be concerned by this prospect, it’s imperative to educate students about how their digital footprints can lead to damaging repercussions relating to job prospects and college applications.

Finally, a lesser-known risk comes from the use of public WiFi networks. These can be found everywhere from libraries to cafes and pose a number of significant risks, including lost personal and financial information. To mitigate these risks, ensure that your older students understand what makes a trustworthy VPN and how basic internet encryption works.

3. Talk About Sensitive Issues

An incredible 95 percent of teenagers in the US now have access to a smartphone. This has resulted in the rise of a number of new issues that need to be addressed in school. From cyberbullying to sexting, it’s important to explain the dangers and repercussions of such activities to students.

Ignoring these sometimes uncomfortable issues does not solve them. Further, issues such as screen addiction can have a dramatic impact on a student’s academic potential, so it’s important to create an environment in which students feel comfortable and supported by their teachers.

4. Educate Parents

Educating children about how to stay safe online is not just something that has to happen at school. To create a truly holistic internet safety program, parents may also need to be educated. Holding online safety workshops at school to help educate parents about internet safety best practices is a good way of ensuring that when the student’s leave school, they remain safe online.

Advise parents on how best to restrict age-inappropriate content at home, such as installing a child-friendly browser or enabling Google safe search. Without educating parents, it’s unlikely that your strategy will be fully implemented or successful.

Conclusion

Ultimately, keeping students safe online requires ongoing attention and effort from educators. Throughout their education, they will be introduced to several different types of technology and the threats will change over time. However, with the proactive involvement of educators and parents throughout the process who understand basic internet safety and cybersecurity practices, there is a greater chance that students will remain cyber secure.

This is a guest blog by Sam Woodhams. Sam is a researcher at Top10VPN, an independent cybersecurity research group and VPN comparison website. He writes about issues of digital privacy and cybersecurity to help protect vulnerable communities from digital threats.

February 8, 2019 1 comment

Announcements/Important Dates Funding

Another Member Benefit from TCEA: Student Loan Refinancing

by Lori Gracey February 7, 2019

written by Lori Gracey

According to Make Lemonade, there are more than 44 million borrowers who collectively owe $1.5 trillion in student loan debt in the U.S. alone. The average student in the Class of 2016 has $37,172 in student loan debt. Texas ranks as one of the top three highest states for total student loan debt outstanding among resident borrowers. Seventy percent of college graduates currently hold diplomas that came with confusing, expensive loans that will take decades to pay off. That’s why TCEA has partnered with CommonBond, a leading student lender, to bring student loan benefits to our members.

Program Highlights

Through refinancing, CommonBond takes costly student loans, whether they are federal or private, and replaces them with a smarter, single loan at a lower interest rate. This allows our members to save money each month or pay off their student debt faster. There is no fee to refinance your student loans with this program.

About CommonBond

Aside from great savings, CommonBond is known for its award-winning customer service and quick and easy application process. The company was named a TIME 2018 Genius Company for offering smarter student loans and for their “commitment to social equality.” It has also been ranked #1 Most Innovative Company in Education by Fast Company for turning student debt relief into a corporate benefit. When you refinance with CommonBond, they cover the cost of a child’s education in the developing world. Their partnership with Pencils of Promise has provided schools, teachers, and technology to thousands (and counting!) of young students in Ghana.

To Get Started Refinancing Your Student Loan

With countless repayment options and numerous forgiveness opportunities, the current student loan landscape can appear daunting. CommonBond is here to help. Simply visit cbpartner.co/tcea to get started or reach out to their Care Team at 800-975-7812 or care@commonbond.co.

TCEA Member Bonus

In addition to this benefit being absolutely free, all TCEA members, family, and friends will receive a $200 cash bonus when they refinance with CommonBond through cbpartner.co/tcea. This bonus can either be used to celebrate (!) or to pay down the debt even faster; it’s your choice. As always, with TCEA, you’ve got this!

February 7, 2019 0 comment

Chromebooks Microsoft Tips and Tricks

Protect Your Eyes with Chrome Extensions

by Miguel Guhlin February 6, 2019

written by Miguel Guhlin

“A high percentage of learners with Dyslexia are complaining about the white background in the new look Google Classroom – is there any way this can be changed?” asks United Kingdom educator, Scott H. There are several ways to “dim” the brightness of a screen and to protect your eyes. How do you accomplish this? You use a Chrome extension.

An example of “Care Your Eyes” extension effects applied to your Chrome browser

Why Adjust the White Background?

“Dyslexia is a learning disability that impairs a person’s fluency or accuracy in being able to read, write, and spell,” says Anthony (Source). Anthony points out that putting black text on a white background, or white text on a black background can result in a “blur” effect. He puts it this way:

Another kind of visual distortion effect that can occur among dyslexic users is the blur effect [1]. This is when dyslexic readers see their text blurring or swirling or together [5]. This can significantly affect a dyslexic user’s reading ability, and make reading tiring for them [7]. You can lessen this effect by avoiding a couple of bad practices.

Contrast sensitivity comes into play, as you can see in the image below:

To avoid the blur effect that comes from a white background on a website like Google Classroom, you have several options to minimize the impact on dyslexic students. Let’s review them.

Option #1 – Use Care Your Eyes

The Care Your Eyes Chrome browser extension, available for free, allows for several options. You can see them in the screenshot below:

You have the choice to “Disable at this site,” which turns it off for certain websites. That means, that you could enable Care Your Eyes for Google Classroom but leave Care Your Eyes extension off for others.

Option #2 – Visor

Visor describes itself as a “screen dimmer and reading aid.” It suggests that the extension may help with fluency and eye-strain. What’s more, during reading, Visor improves concentration and comprehension. Per its website:

Visor’s overlays and point of focus feature may be assistive to users with visual perceptual difficulties such as Dyslexia, Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome and Visual Stress. Whilst research shows results vary from person to person, some users may find that the use of overlays can help with fluency, eye-strain, concentration and comprehension whilst reading.

The options it has appear as a simple slider color scale:

The focus feature reminds me of OneNote’s Immersive Reader, which has a similar feature. You can see Visor’s in action below, focusing the reader on a line of content:

As you can see, a line of content appears in normal colors while the rest of the visible screen is dimmed. You can see OneNote’s Immersive Reader, which works just fine in the Chrome browser with content in a OneNote notebook, below:

The only reason I share OneNote’s Immersive Reader is that it is the gold standard for accessibility right now. Watch this video to learn more.Read this blog entry for updates announced January, 2019.

Option #3 – Eye Protection

Boasting similar features as Care Your Eyes and Visor, Eye Protection makes it a simple affair to replace the white background that leads to blur effect. You can see the options available via its Chrome extension drop-down:

And this is what a web page looks like. The light green color fills the white space of the background.

Option #4 – High Contrast

Like the other solutions, the High Contrast Chrome extension makes it a simple matter to “invert the color scheme to make web pages easier to read.” All that is black becomes white, and white becomes black. Only photos are not inverted. You can see the options available:

Here’s what a web page looks like with High Contrast enabled:

Protect Your Eyes with Chrome Extensions

You don’t have to be dyslexic to seek to minimize brightness and improve readability on websites. These Chrome extensions should provide you with some options.

February 6, 2019 0 comment

iOS Tips and Tricks Writing

Seven Best Writing Tools for iOS Devices

by Guest Blogger February 5, 2019

written by Guest Blogger

Recently, Apple decided to renew its focus on the educational market. The company may have lost some ground to Google and other companies when it comes to owning the educational space, but there’s no denying it’s still a major player. One of the reasons that iOS devices remain popular in educational settings is because there’s no shortage of apps and tools that can be used in the classroom.

Writing is one particular niche where iOS developers have really done an exceptional job. There are a host of apps that students can use to become better, more prolific, creative writers. Here are some of the best.

Simplenote

As its name suggests, Simplenote is a very simple tool for taking notes. These are automatically saved to the cloud and synced to other devices. This is a plus for students who tend to have papers disappear into the ether between school and home or who don’t have access to a stick drive. The tool works for iOS, and there’s also a browser version.

Simplenote is a text-only tool. Some people may see this as a drawback. However, its simplicity gives students a distraction-free utility for taking notes quickly and easily.

Canva For Education

Canva is largely marketed as a simple, graphic design tool for business. However, thanks to Canva’s education initiative, teachers and students can use this tool to create posters, presentations, reports, and more. There are over a million icons, photographs, layouts, and other images that students can access via Canva. This app is available for both the iPhone and the iPad.

Notability

Notability is a wildly popular tool among students and teachers for note taking and annotations. Students can create and share documents from Notability. They can also use the drag and drop feature to move images, text, and other files into the app.

One really neat feature is the ability to search for handwritten notes and convert them to text. When combined with Apple Pencil, students can use Notability to hand write annotations and draw directly onto their device.

This tool even works for students who are auditory learners. The app features allow you to record and play back audio. Even better, notes are synced with the audio recordings. This means that students who are reviewing their notes can also listen to a playback of the lecture

Microsoft Word

It may seem counter-intuitive to use a Microsoft App on an iOS device, but in reality, it makes a lot of sense. Many schools already subscribe to Office 365. It’s a word processing tool that many people already know how to use, and it’s easy enough for others to master. Whether your classroom uses iOS devices exclusively or you simply have a few students bringing their own, the Word App for iOS ensures that every student can access this powerful writing tool.

OmniOutliner

By creating outlines, students are empowered to organize their thoughts and create well-structured documents. This leads to better writing outcomes. It’s also a great way for them to organize large amounts of information for their own understanding. OmniOutliner is an iOS tool that allows them to create great outlines with ease.

Yes, students can use any word processor for outlining, but this tool is created specifically for this purpose. It functions especially well for students who need to create and organize lengthy outlines.

Terminology

Terminology for iOS isn’t a writing tool in the strictest sense. It’s a dictionary and thesaurus reference. Still, it has features that can most certainly help students to become better writers. The tool allows students to look up words, mark words as “favorites,” attach notes to words, and more. Students can also use the tool to look up definitions and other information on Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Google, and Wolfram Alpha. As a result, this tool not only improves writing, it can improve overall literacy.

Grammarly Keyboard

Grammarly Keyboard for iOS is a portable editor that students can use directly from their devices. It checks writing for mistakes in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Even better, it integrates with all other phone apps. As long as students have the Grammarly keyboard selected as their default, they have access to Grammarly insights. Even better, the tool provides easy-to-understand explanations for the suggestions that it makes.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve chosen iOS devices for your classroom, you’re in luck. There are a variety of tools available to help students take better notes, organize their thoughts, and otherwise produce quality written works. Check out a few of the tools here to help your students improve their writing abilities.

This is a guest blog by Daniela McVicker. Daniela is a passionate digital marketer who is interested in everything related to SEO and blogging. She collaborates with Topwritersreview and other websites where she shares her experience and helps marketers make their name in the online world.

February 5, 2019 1 comment

Chromebooks Google Tips and Tricks

Five Hacks for Google Slides

by Miguel Guhlin February 1, 2019

written by Miguel Guhlin

“What’s my favorite G Suite for Education tool?” asked a Google Educator Level 1 session participant. “Google Slides. You can do so much with it!” said another. Slides offers many exciting features that make it a versatile assistant for educators. In this blog entry, let’s take a look at five Google Slides hacks you may find useful. These may deepen your appreciation for Google Slides and increase your productivity.

Note: Curious about what else TCEA bloggers have shared about Google Slides? Explore this rich collection of suggestions, handy tips, and more.

Jumpin’ Jack Slides

“I’m so tired, today felt like being stuck in a crossfire hurricane,” said a friend. At the time, I missed the reference. Classrooms can be tumultuous. The right slide deck can dazzle, amaze, and engage learners of any age. Many agree that a potent message is key. The TED Talks blog lists ten tips worth reviewing. The fifth tip from that list provides our first hack.

Hack #1 – Enhance with Pictures

“Use photos that enhance meaning,” says Aaron Weyenberg (Director, TED). That seems obvious, right? Aaron encourages us to focus on message first, then to select images that enhance. When I create my Google Slides, I find myself crafting my message and looking for images at the same time. Aaron’s more measured approach involves finding images AFTER the message.

Let’s say that you have gathered your images into a folder. Now you have ahead of you the repetitive task of inserting those images and adding words. What if there was an easier way?

Matt Miller and Alice Keeler suggest there is. Use the Drive Slides Chrome extension. This extension makes it easy to create a Google Slides presentation. Here’s how:

Store images for an upcoming presentation in your Google Drive folder in JPG, PNG, or GIF format.
Open your images folder in Google Drive.
Click the DriveSlides icon. You will see several prompts to click through (most about permissions).
DriveSlides will create a Google Slides slidedeck, inserting your images for you.
Customize your Slides slide deck theme, shuffling slides with pre-loaded images around.

One observation I made while DriveSlides worked: I had named each image (e.g. Slide 1, Slide 2) with a vague hope. The hope was that DriveSlides would place the images in the order I wanted. That’s not the way it worked. The image placement on slides appeared random. One of the creators (Alice Keeler and Matt Miller) of Drive Slides has made a video walkthrough. Check it out.

Hack #2 – Use Speaker Notes

“Why don’t you attend Dale Carnegie’s public speaking workshop?” suggested my dad. He had seen my last presentation, one where I felt compelled to read from my notes. A short time later, at seventeen, I put Dale Carnegie’s presentation strategies to work. With those strategies in mind, I thought I had to present without notes. Of course, I was wrong. In time, I learned to rely on slide notes. You can, too.

When presenting now, I use a combination of engaging images that trigger my memory. Slide notes assist me when trying to remember key facts, research, and details. Use slide notes in Google Slides to assist your memory.

Take advantage of a few Chrome extensions to enrich the Slide Notes experience. For example:

SlideSpeech: It converts your slide notes into audio narration for each of the slides. This narrated slide show is available for viewing via the SlideSpeech mobile apps.
Auto Resize Speaker Notes: Allows you to resize the slide previews. To do this, resize the Speaker Notes or selec a size via the sidebar. See the effect of auto resize in the image below.

slides hacks

Explore how you can use speaker notes to provide instructions to students.

Hack #3 – Type with Your Voice

Did you know you can dictate text into Slides’ speaker notes section? This could be a time saver for you rather than typing up everything you know.

slides hacks

To do this, follow these simple instructions for English dictation:

Turn on your microphone.
Use voice typing (Go to Tools then select Voice type speaker notes).
Use voice commands to edit and format your text.

Adding speaker notes has never been easier. Give it a try!

Hack #4 – Create a Hyperlinked Slide Deck

Did you know you could create a hyperlinked slideshow? This is a slideshow for which you have created some form of navigation. Navigation might appear as a table of contents that you click on to jump around the slide deck.

Eric Curts (@ericcurts), Control-Alt-Achieve Blog, shares a rich variety of examples. You can find my curated list online. Want some different examples? Check out Rex Threatt’s interactive worksheets video tutorial.

Hoping for a classroom application? Aside from choose your own adventure or interactive worksheets, consider the use of hyperlinked slides as an easy way to create self-guided presentations a la hyperdocs. Find more ideas.

Hack #5 – Add Audio to Your Slides

One of my favorite PowerPoint features enables me to insert audio recordings. In Google Slides, the only way to put audio in was to insert a YouTube video.

With the Audio Player for Slides, you can insert audio per slide. As you can see from the screen shots below, you can add audio to each slide. Put your audio files in MP3 format in Google Drive.

A quick classroom application? Ask students to add audio reflections that explain a slide; this can boost classroom learning.

Five Hacks for Google Slides

These Google Slides hacks depend on a few Chrome extensions. Give these a try to make how you use Google Slides more engaging. And, since you’ve stuck this long with this blog entry, why don’t you give the Insert icons for Slides add-on a try? You get 1800+ free icons you can use in Google Slides.

February 1, 2019 2 comments

Google Tips and Tricks

A Fresh, New Look for Google Classroom

by Diana Benner January 24, 2019

written by Diana Benner

A few weeks ago, Google rolled out a fresh new look for Google Classroom. Many teachers want to keep their Google Classroom organized and clean and the new updates will help accomplish this.

A Cleaner Look

When teachers log into Google Classroom, they will notice that Classroom has a new look and feel. At first, notice the new white background. Then, when you get into one of your classes, an obvious change you will see is that the class code is now located at the top on the header. There is also a new display icon next to the class code. When you click on it, the class code will appear largely and clearly. This makes is a lot easier to project your class code so new students can join your class.

Drag and Drop Assignments and Topics on the Classwork Page

The Classwork page allows teachers to post assignments and questions. To better organize your classwork page, you can even group those assignments and questions into topics. For additional flexibility, Google has now added the ability for you to drag individual items within and between topics. You can even drag an entire topic to another location on the Classwork page. This will make rearranging and organizing your classroom even easier.

Personalize Your Google Classroom with New Themes

Google has introduced 78 new themes so teachers can now personalize their Google Classroom. The themes come with custom illustrations, ranging from history to math to photography. It’s now even easier to customize your Classroom than ever before. All you have to do is click on Select Theme and choose one of the nice new backgrounds. Of course, you still have the option to upload your own photo.

Hopefully, these are some changes that will be beneficial to you. Stay tuned to our blog for new updates to Google as they come out.

January 24, 2019 3 comments

Educational Trends Good Teaching Leadership Professional Learning

What the Data Says: Teacher Confidence Is High

by Lori Gracey January 22, 2019

written by Lori Gracey

The 4th Annual Educator Confidence Report released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt late in 2018 has some interesting findings in it. More than 1,200 teachers and administrators across the country participated in the study that looked at “how educators perceive the state of education” and how they are using technology in the classroom for learning. While 1,200 is not a huge sample size, it does offer some possible themes that we can examine, themes that may point the way to improvements we as leaders can make.

Theme #1: Barriers to Technology Use Are Decreasing

While barriers to the effective use of technology for learning do exist, educators were more positive this year about their ability to overcome them. Barriers that still remain, however, include:

Lack of time to plan for integration of digital resources into instruction – 52% of educators responding
Inadequate student access to devices/internet outside the classroom – 42%
Lack of devices for students in the classroom – 42%
Device/network unreliability – 35%
Lack of technology-focused professional development – 33%
Lack of digital curriculum-focused professional development – 30%

teacher confidence

It is interesting to note that teachers with more years of experience in the field are more likely to report that lack of time to plan ed tech implementations is a big barrier while those with less experience find inadequate access to tech at home as the biggest barrier.

District leaders should consider how they can provide more time for teacher planning for the use of digital resources, along with more professional development offerings focused on technology and digital curriculum. A blended learning approach might work well for both of these needs.

Another finding from the study has to do with how teachers prefer to learn about the use of instructional technology. 62% of the respondents felt that informal discussions with colleagues was the most impactful way for them to learn how to support the use of technology in the classroom. This was considerably higher than formal professional development provided by the district/campus (49%) or self-guided research (41%). This clearly shows that teachers prefer the opportunity to learn from their peers what works and what doesn’t.

Theme #2: Teacher Confidence in Using Technology Remains About the Same

In the survey, 58% of the teachers responded that they are extremely or very confident in their ability to use ed tech in instructionally effective ways. This compares to 54% in 2016 and 62% in 2017. Again, however, differences appear when you examine the number of years of experience that respondents have. While 64% of those with 10 or fewer years of teaching are confident, only 49% of those with more than 20 years experience feel the same.

This is a gap that must be addressed by leadership, perhaps through more individualized learning opportunities or by pairing younger and more experienced teachers together for learning. Since the study showed that teachers prefer to learn from their peers, paired professional development with ample time for discussion and experimentation is critical.

Theme #3: Teacher Use of Digital Tools Is Up

More and more educators are using digital materials to help their students master content. The most used tools include:

Videos from an instructional program or open source (66%)
Digital communication tools to engage with parents (65%)
Resources shared via a (free or paid) professional, online community (such as TCEA’s Community) (64%)
Digital versions of print instructional materials (59%)
Practice work apps/websites/digital games (58%)

Learning Management Systems saw a significant increase in use, rising to 51% of respondents.

However, while more teachers are using digital resources in the classroom, most of their use remains at the lower levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy: watching a video, looking at print-into-digital resources, and using practice apps. Fewer of the uses at the creativity or collaboration level are being seen even today.

In addition, more teachers are using social media as a way to explore teaching and instructional content. 80% of survey respondents say they use it for that purpose, while 74% use it to communicate/interact with students’ families and 72% use it to interact with other educators.

Conclusions

As leaders, the biggest take-aways from this latest study are that teachers are amazing professionals who want to grow and improve. They definitely see the value that technology can offer for student learning, but need more structured time with peers to practice and master it. How will you make this happen for your teachers?

January 22, 2019 0 comment

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