Summer Selfies and Digital Safety

Schools out for the Summer! 

Kids are ready for a break and teens and tweens have unlimited amount of digital interactivity at their fingertips. 

With less supervision and more time on their hands, it is important for parents to have well-defined guidelines for how to use social media. 

Parents have questions about teen social safety, how they should be monitoring and if so, how and how often. Josh Ochs, with Safe, Smart & Social, an organization that teaches students how to shine online, has created a popular App guide for parents and teachers. 

https://safesmartsocial.com/app-guide-parents-teachers/

Resources: 

http://www.communicationsmaven.com/uncategorized/no-summer-vacation-for-digital-safety-parents-its-on/

https://safesmartsocial.com/teen-social-media-safety-tips-parents/

Recap

Have you heard about Recap? It's a relatively new tool that has some great features! In a nutshell, Recap is a completely free assessment resource (available on the web or through an iPad app) that lets students respond to the teachers' questions or prompts via video.

Website | iPad App

With recap, teachers can...

• create questions that are typed or voice-recorded 
• choose how students will sign in: 7-digit alphabetical PIN or e-mail address/password
• add up to 10 questions in a single assignment (and, as of the newest update on April 12, teachers can now give more than one assignment to students at a time)
• give an assignment to the whole class or only certain students
• set a max response time to make grading faster and students' answers more precise
• set a due date for assignments
• add a poll at the end of an assignment that asks students how well they think they understood the material
• view individual student information or the entire class's responses as a whole
• grab the link to an individual video to share with others (e.g. parents, admin, your co-teacher, and/or social media)
• leave written feedback/commentary on student videos 

The view is super-simple from the students' side. Learners indicate that they are a student on the login screen:

Students can sign in with a class PIN or an e-mail address (whichever option the teacher enabled when he/she set up the class):

If signing in with a PIN, the child must then select his/her name from the class list before seeing any assignments:

The student dashboard allows learners to see previously submitted assignments as well as those that have not yet been completed. The dashboard is also where students can view feedback from their teacher on submitted assignments. (Note that students cannot see other students' assignments or answers.)

This video -- filmed by EdTechTeacher's Greg Kuloweic -- shows you Recap in action from both the teacher and the student side (but keep in mind that a couple of features have been added since this video was released):

 

I already use Seesaw...should I still consider Recap?

While there are similarities between Seesaw and Recap, it's important to recognize that these are two completely different resources. Recap is strictly for assessing students via video (and follow-up poll if the teacher enables it), while Seesaw is more of an ePortfolio tool that happens to have a video feature, too. If you are a Seesaw user, you may still consider incorporating Recap for the opportunity to differentiate questions and/or allow students to turn in video responses confidentially. 

To integrate Recap with Seesaw on iPads, first make sure the Recap app is on all student devices. Then push a note in Seesaw to the entire class with the login information (e.g. 7-digit PIN if students are without e-mail addresses), as shown below.

Seesaw user tip: create a folder just for login information

While students cannot copy the PIN from the Seesaw note directly into the Recap app, this at least provides a consistent place for students to find login information independently. 

Resources:

• Recap Helpdesk
• Recap Teacher Resources

#TCEA16 Favorite Finds

Guest Post by Rebecca Gould, Carroll Senior High School French Teacher

I felt so blessed to attend the TCEA Conference February 3-5 in Austin. I’m always eager to learn and incorporate new strategies in my classroom. TCEA did not disappoint. There was a wide array of classes and workshops to attend, covering a huge variety of topics. 

As other attendees have mentioned, I enjoyed learning more about Google Add-Ons, which have all kinds of applications.

I have also enjoyed discovering Quizizz and using it in class. We use Kahoot to review, then Quizizz as a formative assessment. The students can quiz on their own devices, go at their own pace, and get immediate feedback. The instructor can then get the class results in an Excel spreadsheet to enter as a grade. You can upload images to accompany the questions.

I couldn’t be more excited about the Google Cultural Institute (art project, historic moments, world wonders) for art, history, geography, social studies, and world language teachers. I didn’t even know it existed before the conference. I’m going to enjoy taking my students on virtual tours of French art in museums around the world

I’m also excited to try Microsoft OneNote, an amazing digital note-taking app. 

There are two main reasons that I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to attend TCEA:

1. My comfort level with new technology increased. I’m willing to take more risks with new apps and software, which ultimately improves student engagement and learning. 
2. It was so much fun! I developed relationships with amazing teachers from other CISD campuses and had the opportunity to swap insights.

#TCEA16 Favorite Finds

Guest Post by Steve Nathman, Carroll High School Digital and Interactive Media Teacher

 These were my top 2 sessions:

1. 3D Printing aspect of the MakerBot Replicator -- 3D printing is easier than ever before, affordable at around $3000, and this device is smaller than my color printer!  Kids can invent and have tangible items to show off their work (and do so in different colors)! This is a cross-curriculum item where brochures can be designed by students in an interactive media class, the items can be sold, and it can be worked into our drone assembly by inventing parts and printing them! I truly believe that each school should have one of these, with one teacher or technologist responsible for knowing how to work it. The inventions from students will fly in!   

1. Google Street View -- this is an app for 360° of amazing! This is for personal- and work-related usage! I had students go outside, using multiple devices such as phones and iPads. I also used this for recreating what happens in Digital and Interactive Media, and students each posed like they were working on an assignment. Download the app on your iOS and/or Android device or take a look on your computer and you’ll be hooked!

#TCEA16 Favorite Finds

Guest Post by Kim Villarreal, Rockenbaugh Elementary School Science Lab Teacher

Hi, everyone — I’m excited to share a classroom communication and scheduling app called Bloomz. 

As a classroom teacher, I have been a long-time fan of Remind: Safe Classroom Communication (formerly Remind 101) for its simple way of communicating with parents. Once your parents or students join the Remind class, you can send one way announcements, photos, audio, and/or video via text anytime.  The latest version also allows for two way communication both through instant message with up to ten parents/students or by opting to allow replies to announcements.  Your personal contact information remains private since all communication is done through the app.  

Sign Up Genius has been long been my favorite way to schedule parent/teacher conferences or to organize volunteers.

Bloomz is the perfect combination of the best of both of these apps.  

The ease of communication plus the efficiency of scheduling are what makes Bloomz different.  I can see this app saving teachers a great deal of time and headache by streamlining their communication and scheduling needs. 

Here is a short video to give you a glimpse of what Bloomz offers:

 

Happy Bloomzing! 

#TCEA16 Favorite Finds

Guest Post by Jen Gwilliam (McCue), Eubanks Intermediate School 5th Grade Science Teacher

Now that we are all back from TCEA and settled back in, I wanted to share a few finds and share the loads of information I learned with all of you! Here is the Gwilliam TOP 4 FREE of TCEA: 

Nearpod

This is an amazing way to teach or present information and puts the device in students' hands! It makes learning fun and helps students stay engaged the entire time! Nearpod is a great tool -- check it out! 

Canva

Do you want your PowerPoints to look like you are a graphic artist? The students love working with this one! It has great graphics, modern fonts, and images...and it's so easy to use! 

Google

I learned so many cool, fun tricks that make it clear why Google is such a must-have in the classroom. Try the "research" button and see what happens! Share, copy, use voice-to-text writing, and use Photomath to check math problems!

VideoScribe

Have you always taken an interest in those cute videos that show folks drawing with neat fonts? VideoScribe is for you then! You can make a quick video that keeps people's interest as you explain something, and it does the drawings -- wow! 

Apps for the Holidays

If you are like me, you are probably on holiday overload, from all the shopping, to decorations, to preparing for travel and much more. Take a break and check out some of my favorite apps.

The following app categories are:

• Shopping - learn some ways to save a buck during the holidays.
• Food - from mobile ordering to recipe collection
• Photos 
• Social Media - I've embraced Snapchat as a way to communicate with my college daughter
• Travel - apps to help police sightings, places to stop and where to find cheap gas
• eReaders - check out ways to get free books via Overdrive and much more
• Music streaming
• Television apps - catch up on all your favorite shows
• Games - fun gaming apps to play with others and stand alone
• Crazy Photo/Voice - have fun with your children making fun video with crazy faces and voices

Below is a Thinglink with descriptions and links to the app. Hover over the picture of the app to read the description and get the link. Many apps can be found in the iTunes store and the Google Play store. However, the link for each app is for the iTunes store.

https://www.thinglink.com/scene/728274771581599744

My Favorite Evergreen Apps

iPads are wonderful tools, but in order to use them to their full potential, it's important to look at evergreen apps. Evergreen apps are "non-subject apps useful throughout the year for speaking, writing, listening, drawing, annotating, curating, collaborating, sharing, and more." (Daccord, 2013.) I find evergreen apps more convenient than content-specific apps, as students (and I) can use them for a variety of projects, regardless of the subject or grade level.

Here are my favorite evergreen apps:

1. The "does everything" app:  Seesaw (free) or Explain Everything ($3.99)

If you teach elementary school, Seesaw is the app for you. While I've seen high school teachers use Seesaw, Explain Everything might be a better bet for the secondary crowd. (Secondary peeps: if you prefer a free app, Educreations is good -- it just doesn't have all the features Explain Everything does.)

Both have a whiteboard feature (among many other components!) that allows students to draw on the screen with their finger or a stylus and a recording option where students can record their voice over a project. This link will show you a series of blog post I wrote on my technology blog about Seesaw.

2. The tutorial app: Shadow Puppet Edu (free)

Users can string several photos or videos into one slideshow, and then record their voice over the entire presentation, adding text, music, and drawings where needed. The Shadow Puppet website has great examples from classroom teachers on how to use the app.

3. The poster app: Tackk (free)

Tackk (available in both an app and on the web) allows users to create online posters with a variety of media inside. Tackk is much like Smore, except Tackk allows users to create an unlimited number of posters per account, and teachers can easily create lesson plan template for students. Click here to learn more about Tackk.

4. The interactive images app: ThingLink (free)

ThingLink (available in an app and on the web) allows users to upload a photo and then apply "tags" -- in the form of plain text, links, or other embedded content -- across the photo. Click here to learn more about ThingLink.

5. The mind map app: Popplet Lite (free)

Popplet is a brainstorming app that allows users to create bubble maps. You can save bubble maps as PDFs or image files, and then import into another app such as Canvas or Seesaw to share. Click here too see a popplet my students made when discussing science tools. Click here to view public popplets for more ideas.

6. The assessment app: Socrative (free)

Socrative (available in an app and on the web) is my favorite paperless assessment tool. Teachers can ask questions on the fly, give students a pre-planned quiz, or engage students with a "space race" competitive assessment before receiving data quickly in the format of their choice.

7. The brainstorming app: Padlet (free)

Padlet (available on the web and in a brand new app) lets users create a central hub for collaboration. It's great for discussion questions, mind maps, virtual "parking lots," and much more.

8. The collection app: Google Forms (free)

Technically, users can only create Google forms from a computer. But since finished forms are accessible from a mobile device, I'm throwing this one in the mix. Google forms are so versatile! Once you create a form from the computer, send students the link or attach it to a QR code for students to scan at their convenience. This blog post tells you how to create a Google form and suggests ways for using it in the classroom.

9. The collaborative drawing app: Whiteboard Lite (free)

On the surface, this just appears as a plain whiteboard app, but there's an awesome feature that will help students write/draw collaboratively from different devices: users on the same WiFi connection can draw on the same whiteboard simultaneously, and the other person's drawings appear in real time on your device.

10. The note-taking app: Paperport Notes (free)

This is a nice alternative to the widely-hailed but expensive (for an app) Notability. Paperport Notes lets users add blank or lined pages, camera images, files from cloud services, web snippets, and clipboard contents to digital notebooks. Users can then type, draw, or highlight with their finger or stylus, and/or record a voice over each page.

References

• Daccord, Tom. "The 'Evergreen' iPad: Why All Your Apps Should Fit on One Screen." eSchool News: Daily Tech News and Innovation. 28 May 2013. Web. 1 Oct. 2015. 

Favorite Finds from TCEA

Guest post by Tracy Brandt, 2nd grade teacher at Johnson Elementary

My name is Tracy Brandt, and I’m a second grade teacher at Johnson Elementary.  I attended TCEA for the first time this year as a part of the Dragons Go Digital program and came home with many new and fun ideas.  Below are some of my favorite finds. I hope they will benefit you as well!

Here are my top 3 favorite finds:

SnapType is a free app available for iOS that allows you to take a photo of any worksheet or workbook page with an iPad, and then use the keyboard to type on the page. You can save the annotated document as an image, make it a PDF, or a SnapType Document. Then you can print, email, or message the document.  SnapType is very useful for students who have handwriting difficulties or occupational therapy.

Smarty Pins is a feature that turns Google Maps into a geographical trivia game.  You can start a game immediately or choose from a variety of topics such as Arts & Culture, Science & Geography, Sports & Games, Entertainment, or History and Current Events. Players start the game with 1,000 miles (points).The goal is to correctly answer as many questions as possible before running out of miles (incorrect answers subtract from your mileage.). To answer, you drop a pin on the city or area that correctly answers the question. Players get bonus points for answering within 10 seconds without using any hints.

Canva.com is a powerful, versatile, and easy creation tool. It uses formatted “canvases” for multiple forms of social, business, and educational media such as infographics, brochures and email headers, invitations, posters, etc. Canva comes with a library of photos, graphics, symbols, layouts and text arrangements for you to use and most are free.  It is also available as an app.  It is very simple to use, just drag, drop, and create!

Favorite Finds from TCEA

Guest Post by Caitlin Frank, Carroll Senior High Economics Teacher

After attending TCEA in Austin this month, I went through my materials and want to share a few of my favorite discoveries. One of the classes I attended and enjoyed was the Apps class where a group of teachers shared their favorite apps that they could use for various teacher activities. Several of the most useful apps included Quizlet, Landtech Esign, Post-it-Plus, Evernote, and Scannable. All of these apps were focused on making the educational experience more digital for students and teachers.

Quizlet is an online quiz system that takes topics from every subject and turns them into notecards that students can study on their phone. My students started using this app years ago for economic vocabulary and they swear by the accessibility of a phone with the benefits of studying notecards. Quizlet is available for iOS and Android devices.

Landtech Esign is a very convenient app for teachers who need to submit an electronic signature. By inputting your signature one time it can save and duplicate it onto any document you need a signature for.

Post-It-Plus is a way for students and teachers to take their important post it notes and scan them into their computer or tablet. It actually scans them in as a post it note and can be used/organized just like an electronic post it note. Post-It Plus is only available for iOS devices.

Evernote Scannable is an app that is a scanner without having to buy an actual scanner. It can scan any document directly onto your phone and enables you to save/share these scanned documents easily. Evernote Scannable is only available for iOS devices.

All of these apps take what teachers are doing everyday but makes the process more accessible and simple. Plus they are all free, which can save teachers time and money when trying to organize their materials. However, the way the teachers organized the class was what made it my favorite class. They used a “Top Chef” theme and incorporated their favorite food/drink apps just to keep the audience involved and entertained. Also they showed each of these apps on their own devices to the class to illustrate how each one looked/worked. This interactive teaching style would also be a beneficial tool for teachers who are trying to share their technology discoveries to their fellow educators.

Favorite Finds from TCEA

Guest Post by Rachael Hulse, 3rd Grade Language Arts and Social Studies, CES

Hey Dragons! My name is Rachael Hulse and I am a 3rd grade Language Arts and Social Studies teacher at Carroll Elementary. I attended TCEA this year for the first time with our digital team.

Here are just a few of my Favorite Finds from #TCEA15:

Charades for Kids!
This is a really fun way to review any vocabulary words. All you have to do is put in the word list and then you are good to go! We used this for Wordly Wise and they LOVED it.

Plickers
Plickers lets you poll your class for free, without the need for student devices. They have a printed card that they hold up and rotate depending on their answer. The iPad will scan the cards and immediately give you results of what everyone answered. I have loved getting to use this with my students!

 Quizlet
This is a flashcards and study tool that will help students to review anywhere. Students can 1) study on the go, 2) play games to study, 3) create your own flashcards or 4) study with images and audio. A great tool for all learning styles.

Post-it Plus
Use the app to capture an image of the Post-it® Notes from your work session and manipulate them digitally. Capture up to 50 notes at a time and save as a board. You can combine boards. Export boards to PowerPoint, Excel or PDF file. This would be great to use during reading/writing workshop or for exit tickets.

All the apps are free and can be used on any iOS device. The apps can be used across curriculum and are a great way to engage your students. Be sure to give them a try. 

On top of all the great learning, a few of us enjoyed getting to see the Spazmatics perform at the conference. 

Left to Right: Jenny Bowen, me, Jessi Valles

Make Any Video a Lesson

"Teachers who use instructional video report that their students retain more information, understand concepts more rapidly and are more enthusiastic about what they are learning."~NTTI. Using videos take students to places that may not be able to go...field trips, inside the body, outer space, or around the globe. Videos can illustrate complex concepts that in other realms are not visible for students. Videos can bring literature to life. By using videos in the classroom, a teacher can reach visual learners and engage students. Are you using videos in your lessons?

Read about new video tools that allow you to make any video a lesson.

The first find is EDpuzzle. EDpuzzle is a free webtool.

Likes about EDpuzzle:

• Import any video off the web or from your file
• Crop the video
• Add voice over (for the entire video)
• Add audio notes (Add multiple notes in various spots)
• Embed quiz questions (M/C, open-ended)
• Create a class and have students join with a generated code
• Assign videos to a class
• Share video creations via social media or a web link (login required)
• Monitor student progress
• Block skipping ahead in video assignment
• Student iOS App now available 
• Viewing is better from the app than the web. 
• The video displays across the entire screen 
• Quiz questions appear in another screen instead of beside the video.
• Class assignments show grades and progress

Dislikes about EDpuzzle:

• You cannot show different parts of the same video or combine two or more videos into one assignment (you must create a separate assignment for each “chunk” of video).
• You cannot rearrange the order of video assignments within a class (although you can hack this by numbering the video assignments when you name them).
• No partial voiceovers – you must either record an audio track for the entire video or none at all.
• Link to assignments for students require login 

JUST ADDED LAST WEEK: EDpuzzle now has a FREE iOS student app to make the viewing process easier. Click the icon to download this free app.

The view of the app reveals the progress of the student.

Take a quick look at an EDpuzzle video.

The second find is Zaption. Zaption has a free version and a paid version.

Likes about Zaption:

• Records skips
• Add questions and make them required
• Track viewer progress with analytics
• Import videos from YouTube, Vimeo, your computer
• with pro account you can add multiple videos
• Can add these tools to your video (free account):
• Text slide
• Image slide
• Drawing
• Open Response Question
• Multiple Choice Question
• Checkbox Question

Dislikes about Zaption:

• These features are only available with the Pro (paid) version:
• Import multiple videos into same lesson
• Put students into groups
• Integrate with Canvas LMS
• Numerical, discussion, and drawing response questions
• Jump feature

Demo: http://youtu.be/4s1762oZ0d0 

The third find is Metta. Metta is another free video lesson editor.

Likes about Metta:

• Crop videos
• Add questions
• Add images
• Lessons visually appealing
• Allow teachers to combine more than one clip into the same lesson

Dislikes about Metta:

• Does not have the same level of teacher reporting such as...
• seeing if each individual student watched the lesson
• how they performed on the quiz 
• Not as robust as EDpuzzle and still experiences kinks inside the webversion and the app.
• Unable to login to account on the app using Google+ even though the account was great using Google+.

Resources:

"Video Strategies." National Teacher Training Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Sept. 2014.

"EDpuzzle Review: Easy-to-Use Tool Lets Teachers Quickly Turn Online Video into Lessons | Edudemic." Edudemic. Edudemic Staff, 30 Sept. 2014. Web. 06 Oct. 2014.