Google Docs Presentations

Though Google Docs may seem like a pretty obvious choice for Web 2.0 applications, I have seen some phenomenal uses in the classroom. It allows for everyone to stay connected and everything to be in one place. Group work becomes a breeze, especially with the push now for one-to-one classrooms, where every student has a computer. 

Additionally, it works extremely well for putting lessons together, creating quizzes, rubrics (with add-ons,) and organizing it all. Managing everything is very easy because most everything works with the push of a button, rather than a bunch of bells and whistles. 

OrangeSlice is a fantastic add-on, allowing teachers to create easy to use rubrics, as well as a way for students to quantitatively peer review work. Like most things on Google Docs, OrangeSlice works relatively simply, providing filler text and spaces to input your own grading criteria. 

Overall, Google Docs and the tools that it provides (including this blog!) is fantastic as it allows for easy to use tools that promote good work in classrooms.

DIGG Post #1

Looking over my Digg reader, I am presented with some decent items and some pretty mediocre ones. Most of the good blogs come from teachers, be them well-established or not, rather than educational sites themselves.

For example, I read an interesting post titled "I am a secret book lover," which mused about forcing kids to like reading. The simple conclusion was that you can't, and should not. That being said, it made some interesting points about she herself not really talking about her love of reading with her class, which sounds a tad backwards, as I am of the mind that these things should be modeled for our students.

Another post spoke out against traditional note taking in favor of given materials like transcripts. They argued that it allowed for more of an opportunity to ask questions, rather than being glued to a page. Once again, I'm not sure I agree with this either. I think putting pen to page goes a long way in terms of memory and processing, and I feel like given notes would just give students and opportunity to tune out.

The last one that stood out for me spoke about the futility of grades, albeit traditional ones. It focused on formative assessment, as it allows for a more holistic style of grading. This is a bit iffy for me, as summative assessments do provide nice baselines.

Overall, I'd say that poking through some blogs was rather uneventful, as it didn't really find anything of much use. 

Digg reader itself is relatively easy to use, though there is a bit of a learning curve. I like having everything in one place, but I'm not sure if it's essential. I don't think I would use it in my classroom, as most of the material I'm finding for my content area is not great. 

Google Forms and Add-ons

Poking through potential tools for assessing and grading student knowledge, I've found that Google Forms is an excellent tool for crafting tests and quizzes, whether they be formal or informal. It's intuitive and easy to use, and it provides for a variety of different structures and possibilities. 

For example, it is extremely easy to come up with a quick test of short answer questions - all you have to do is type in the questions and you're done. You don't have to worry about typing in the right answer or anything like that (that can be done using some Google Add-ons.) Just send the link to the students, have them take it, and then export into an excel spreadsheet within Google docs - all that with a few button clicks. 

This would be great for simple comprehension quizzes to check up on whether students are reading the required material, or for an easy poll on how they enjoy the book or what they are struggling with. Easy to implement in an English classroom. 

And not just in the English classroom - Google Forms could be great for contact information and attendance. (Writing this blog post actually reminded me of a Google Form I needed to fill out for a play I'm in - emergency contact info.)

Regarding the Google Add-ons, tools like Flubaroo make grading assignments easy. All that you have to do is download the add-on, create a key, set the question point values, and press grade. It formats it within the excel document for you, and it's extremely clear. The only issue is grading partial credit. That is something I still haven't figured out how to do, though it looks like you can "grade by hand," which allows you to do some of those things yourself. Not convenient, but it works.

I did some searching for other grading add-ons and I found Super Quiz, which though has a few more options than Flubaroo, is much more complicated. It requires much more of a knowledge of excel, whereas with Flubaroo all you have to do is click a few buttons. I think I'll be sticking with that, as I want ease and simplicity. I imagine anything more complicated will be graded by hand. 

All these tool are great and helpful - and I get wait to give them more of a try!
 

Digital Citizenship in the 21st Century

Today's class was rather exciting! And enlightening! Examining ideas revolving around "digital citizenship," we learned about the ways in which you could ethically interact with the worldwide web. This creates a variety of interesting situations involving teaching in the 21st century--as we are becoming increasingly more connected through digital means.

Students need to be aware of how the internet works. It's easy to assume that because many students these days grew up surrounded by technology, they know how to use an interact with it in a conscious way. In fact, many don't. Myself included! There are many things such as the nuances of copyright laws and fair use that I was completely unaware of. I found learning about these things very interesting--specifically just how easy it is to infringe on copyright. I really had no clue. Luckily, creative commons licensure  exists to provide people with a means to use and share work on the internet.
 

Eugène Delacroix derivative work: Ju gatsu mikka (^o^) appelez moi Ju (^o^) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons#/media/File:CC_guidant_les_contributeurs.jpg

For example, the picture above has a creative commons license--as well as conveniently and creatively advertising the practice. Following the license, I simply had to attribute the photo to its creator and viola! I can use it in this blog post. 

Using tools like this in the classroom sounded difficult at first, but the more I mess around with it, the easier it seems. Online and other tech-savvy assignments are pretty much absolutely necessary these days. Technological instruction is now apart of schooling standards. I think the most important thing is simply letting your students know about some of the tiny details. Many probably know how to navigate today's tech--I've already stated that they've presumably grown up with it--but helpful things like creative commons licensing and other copyright tools, like the ability to do an advanced google search that filters usable material for you, can be very helpful.


Blogs like these can be extremely helpful and useful in classrooms--as it allows students to communicate with one another in the same way that they might share with the teacher.

Kevin Lim 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/inju/278659657

As a teacher, I think this could be a fantastic way to stimulate discussion--or allow discussion to continue beyond the classroom. It's a format that is becoming very popular and it can make assignments feel more "real" for students.


Overall, all of this is very interesting and I think it will be good to play around with. The classroom is always changing, and I think that this could provide a step in a good direction--one that can be relatable and enjoyable.