Drive

Love, Hate, and the Tangled Web of Drive

Course Outline: 

How to upload files from Gmail and Local drives

How to make folders 

How to search 

Sharing permissions 

Team Drive

Watch Michele's Tour of Drive

Point of this workshop: Spend the next hour putting things into folders or uploading local files that you want to share or reuse in the future. DO NOT bother trying to clear out stuff in drive you don't need anymore. That's futile. Keep things you want to reuse organized in folders by year or topic, bring things stored on multiple devices together for better access, and let the mess rest. 

How to Get Credit: Send Michele 2 screenshots: 1 of you ADVANCE searching Drive and 1 of your top page of drive showing the existence of at least one folder. See examples below. 

                              

Smore

Smore is a template-based digital newsletter. It is extremely easy to use and is now a preferred method of sharing workshops, events, bibliographies, and reports. The Hive is where collections of smores are kept available for duplication.

This video introduces you to the product.
This video shows you how to use it.
If you want way better quality instruction than what I gave in my screencast, smore has an official youtube channel with instruction videos.

In order to get credit for this course, you will need create and share a smore. There are several ways to share, included in the 2nd video. I don't mind which way you get it to me.

I recommend you use this time to create a functional smore. Unlike the Classroom or Forms workshops, this would be a great time to either create a welcome smore explaining your procedures and philosophies to families, or a wrap-up smore sharing final thoughts, memories, or summer recommendations. Maybe you want to make a smore for a neighborhood picnic or one to send to family remembering your April vacation. This product has a free limit, so you may as well make one of your freebies count! To own this product would be $79 a year.

Tips for GMail and Forms

In this course you will make a Form (which is a Google Survey) and discover 3 key ways you can use it in your classroom: student to student data/opinion collection, family data collection, and quick assessments. 

Then there are 4 things I'd like to show you about GMail:

Labeling (Folders)

Searching

Themes (Backgrounds)

Groups

Please Watch this movie for GMail

and this movie for Forms 

In order to get credit for this course, you will need to send me:

a link to the Form you create or an email invitation to take it, 

        *which should have at least 2 questions with different types of responses           (Ex short answer and multiple choice)

        *and an embedded picture. 

You will also need to send me 2 screenshots in Gmail: 

        *one in contacts where you've made a group, 

        *and one where you display an advanced search. 

NONE of these 3 things (form, group, or search) need to be practical--as in ready for a real audience or use. This is an introductory course meant to move you through the product in guided practice. 

 

Feel free to share a comment below of how you see yourself trying a Form in your teaching next year! 

Google Classroom For Beginners

Welcome to our online class.
Google Classroom is a place where you can easily post digital content for your students AND gather work or responses from them about it. If you've ever interfaced with a blog (like the one you're on for this course), you are familiar with the basic layout. Classroom is like a private blog where your students' digital work is compiled, creating a record for you and them (and their parents if you wish) of the work you do together. No more "lost" work. No more scattered links. And it's EASY!

There are several videos linked below. I recommend you watch then go do each in turn. (Watch one, do one. Watch #2, do #2.) These do not have to be done on the same day!

The first is setup and posting.
The 2nd is inviting students.
The 3rd is connecting content: drive, youtube, links.
The 4th is final details of student use.
A Clarification of Students Returning Work

In order to get credit, you need to:

1. Join my fake class and mark the assignment complete (invitation will be in your email).
2. create a class
3. create a post of any type
4. add content to that post (a link or a doc)
5. invite me: linsem@victorschools.org
6. I will then comment on your post
7. and finally you will respond to my comment in your classroom

I recommend the classroom you set up for this course be a throw-away. Name it something generic like "Online Beginner Course" and create bogus, short entries. If you want to continue to experiment with google classroom, I am happy to be your guinea pig. If you wish, continue to use me throughout the course to test how it looks when you ask me to take a form, share a doc of my own, or other such activities.

However, while you're going through your paces exploring this technology, you should absolutely be thinking of how you ask your students to use the internet. Reflect on what you did last year, how you collected student work, and if this product would be useful or even enhance what you did. If you think you want to begin building a classroom you might actually want to use, go for it!

Feel free to share ideas or questions in the comments here or privately in email to me.

UPDATE! So it's the day after I posted the videos about Classroom, and Dave just shared Google's update. Notably, you will be able separate out assignments and discussion posts. It still looks murky to me on whether or not the hated chronological order in the stream will be undone (some of the features in this post they have NOT rolled out yet, just announced). Another big change is they've made it easier to reuse a class by having more powerful people control and resetting the class intro code. Creating quizzes within Classroom doesn't seem that big of a change... and might end up separating things if I've already got a body of quizzes made in Forms. This type of thing is something you need to accept if you plan on living in Classroom... Google changes their interface a LOT and more than that, they both add and remove capabilities often. Being a fluid user of buttons and just figuring things out is a life skill, right?!?!

Professional Reading Book Club

This book club is meant to be a way for you to earn credit for sharing your professional reading.

*Journal articles, blogs, and newspapers will not count*

This workshop is meant for books. However, the format you read them in: print, ebook, or audiobook, is up to you.

I'll be reading Wiggins' The Best Class You Never Taught: How Spider Web Discussion Can Turn Students into Learning Leaders.

After attending Leah Mermelstein's visit in June, she suggested this book if you want to pursue the kinds of thinking she spoke about at the K-5 units of writing course.

Please share the book and author you'll be reading in the comments below. You first have to login to Blogger, or your comment will be posted as anonymous and then you can always say "This is Michele" in your text. When you finish, leave a small book review of at least 3 sentences: The gist of the book's purpose, the best take away, and a universal quote from the text you think others might enjoy. No credit will be given for responses made after July 25. 

If you wanted to share more, such as amazing resources the book contained, the thing that annoyed you or left you in disagreement, or other random opinions, go for it! 

Book clubs are public discussions, so please do comment on other people's reviews. While not required, conversations and questions about other books are encouraged. If someone else posts a book that looks interesting, feel free to read the same title. 

Children's and YA Literature Book Club

Happy Summer!
Welcome to KidLit Book Club.
You are going to choose what to read. Please select texts of approx. 100 pages. For instance, you may read 4 picture books, 2 early chapter books, or a longer novel. They should be things that are new-to-you. You may read them in any format--audio, ebook, or print.

Here on the blog, please post what you've chosen to read so that others in the course can see and share. Please login to blogger so your comments are labeled or put "This is Michele" in the text of your book announcements and reviews. You are encouraged to read the blog comments and add your own to anyone else's... that's the "club" part of the course. However, peer comments, aside from your summary, are not required.

When you finish, post your review. It should include:
a one sentence gist that mentions the main character and main plot thrust,
a one sentence opinion as a reader-perhaps a favorite part,
and a one sentence opinion as a teacher-perhaps with a comment about teach points or the type of reader you'd rec the book to.

If you read 4 picture books, yes you do this for every book.
If you read 2 short early-reader chapter books, you'll submit 2 reviews.

Ex Book Report: Little Red Riding Hood by Perrault. A little girl encounters a trickster wolf in a historical fairy tale. I really enjoyed the way the suspense builds, but was surprised by the abrupt ending with the odd way the wolf dies. I would not choose to read this out loud but would recommend it to kids who want edgier, spookier reads (that really aren't all that bad).

My Real Book Report:
Making Mistakes on Purpose was absolutely hilarious and bizarre in the tradition of classic British madcap adventures. The lighthouse-boarding-school houses the unflappable Ms. Rapscott, her 2 assistant corgis, and 5 female charges, each of which has an arc. They often cross paths with their compatriots in the boys school on the mountain as they journey To the Top through many other funny community characters. Because of this intense cast, I find this book best as a read aloud for grades 3-5. The characters are 9, but the amount of peril and independence they face makes them feel more like 12. The book has a slow start and I wasn't a fan of the slow writing at the end, but OH! the adventure in between... It's a LITERAL take on metaphors so would be great to reinforce them, and the characterization of each different strong-willed girl was superb. What keeps me from rec'ing this book as a Must Read is the length... it's super long. Took me days to read and I'm like lightning. However, it's full of life lessons like how to make friends, recover from hurt feelings, and take matters into your own hands... it has gobs of discussion material great for the fall.