What to do with all that data?

Google Forms are an assessment tool that have become popular with a lot of our staff. I’ve seen staff use Forms to survey students, create self grading quizzes, bell ringers and exit tickets. Forms allow you to include a variety of question types, embed video and images. Responses immediately populate into a spreadsheet. Checkout the Edtech Website for a tutorial on Google Forms.

Creating and administering a Google Form is the easy part. The real challenge is determining what to do with all the data after collecting it. On our October Institute days, we defined a formative assessment as any assessment during the learning process that is used to modify teaching and learning activities for the same group of students. Below are two strategies you can use to manage the data in a Google Spreadsheet and quickly make adjustments to teaching and learning activities.

First, use the summary of results feature to get an aggregate view of student responses. This feature shows you a bar graph or pie chart for each question. In addition, you see the percent of students that choose each response. Use this view to immediately clear up any common misconception or sticking points. Simply click “Form” and “Show summary of responses.”

Another tip is to set up conditional formatting within the spreadsheet. Conditional formatting will color code the spreadsheet, so that you can instantly pinpoint individual students that are grasping the concepts and which ones need further intervention. Checkout the tutorial below to learn how to set up conditional formatting in a Google Spreadsheet.

Stop by TPACK Tuesday this week to discuss Google Spreadsheets and conditional formatting.

Curate Web Resources and Create Graphic Organizers with Padlet

Padlet is a great tool that has become popular with a lot of our staff over the last year. I’ve heard staff mention they like padlet for the following reasons:

• Its free, flexible, and user friendly.
• Students do not need an account to add to padlet walls.
• You can add text, images, and video to padlet walls.
• Padlet walls can be embedded in a learning management system, wiki, or blog.

At TPACK Tuesday this week, we will discuss two ways to use padlet that you might not have thought of.

1. Keep all of your web resources organized with the padlet extension. This can be a big time saver when planning out your lessons!
2. Create an interactive graphic organizer. Checkout the sample venn diagram below.

Created with Padlet

Just like last week we will give away TPACK t-shirts to all that stop by! We hope to see you there!

EduCanon and Free T-Shirts!

This week at TPACK Tuesday we will go over EduCanon. Our district recently got an upgrade to the premium version! Checkout our earlier post on EduCanon to learn more. This week everyone in attendance will get a TPACK t-shirt produced by Brian Mathien's Graphic Arts class. We hope to see you there!

Free Google Basics Course

How have you dealt with workflow since we went one to one? Are you frustrated with the mass amounts of emails you can get when students share google documents? We have a solution! Starting November 18th, you can take a free online Google Basics for Teaching course. In this course, you will learn how to use Google Apps for Education tools to enhance the efficiency and innovation of your teaching in a one to one classroom.

This is an online course that can be completed at your own pace when you have time! It consists of text lessons, videos, practice activities, and a final project. It is divided into the following units:

Research and Communicate: search for online resources and distribute information to school communities.

Create and Share: make online documents and foster collaboration using word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and survey tools.

Enhance Classroom Experiences: use online tools to build community, save administrative time, and add visual resources to lessons.

If you are interested register for free here: https://basicsforteaching.withgoogle.com/preview

Tic Tac Toe to Formatively Assess Students

During our October institute days, we discussed the impact formative assessments have on student learning. This week at TPACK Tuesday, we will discuss a formative assessment strategy that can provide students immediate feedback on concepts and key terms covered in any content area. We call it Tic Tac Tell.

First open up a Google Document and create a tic tac toe board with three columns and three rows. Enter key terms and concepts from a unit of study into each of the boxes. Tell students they need to create one to three sentences demonstrating their understanding of the key terms and concepts in the grid. The only requirement is that the terms/concepts selected must make a tic tac toe. This is a great way to have students make connections between key terms and concepts covered in any unit of study.

Now lets integrate a little technology to give students immediate feedback on their responses. Have students anonymously enter their sentences into the quick question open response option in Socrative. As a class you can provide feedback to students by discussing each of the responses. Since students entered their responses anonymously no one will feel singled out. To spice things up a little more, you can use the voting option in Socrative to determine the best response in class. If you need help with Socrative, check out the Socrative tutorial on the Ed Tech Website.

We hope to see you in the collaboration room this Tuesday!

SAMR Revisited

During the October institute days, the BHS staff were introduced to the SAMR model and ideas to engage students using technology. As a follow-up, here are the SAMR resources that were used in the presentation. 

• Kathy Schrock's Guide to SAMR - see "works from others" for more great resources.
• 10 Ways to Reach Redefinition
• The SAMR Model of Technology Integration using Google Docs
• Examining SAMR - Moving Towards Redefinition

Web 2.0 Tools used during "Engaging Instruction"workshop:

• Google Presentation - used for the slide presentation and collaborative group work.
• Kahoot! - Game-based assessment tool.
• PowToons - Make animated videos and presentations.

Multi-Task by Extending Your Mac Screen

+Kathy Hempel  and +Marijana Jensen recently taught me how to extend the Mac screen, which allows you to show a video on the smartboard and work on another screen. Kathy is the librarian teacher at Station middle school and Marijana is a Technology Support Assistant in the district. They put together the directions below. Thanks for sharing Kathy and Marijana!