As learning becomes increasingly digital, teachers need to find quick and innovative ways of providing timely feedback. Unfortunately, it is very time consuming to leave comments for every mistake that a student makes on an essay. The CheckMark Chrome Extension is a perfect solution for grading papers because it provides you with a menu of canned comments that automatically insert as comments into Google Docs.
Next, open up a student essay in Google Docs and highlight the text that you want to comment on. Once text is highlighted, you will see a list of comments that you can select.
Finally, choose the comment that you would like to insert. CheckMark will automatically insert the feedback as a comment in Google Docs.
Conclusion
Timely feedback is an important aspect of increasing student engagement. Students need to know what they are doing well and what they need to improve. When grading in an online environment, this can be a very difficult and time consuming task. CheckMark reduces the amount of time spent adding comments and allows you to provide students with better feedback. November is Clicks for a Cause Month! Every November, my blog helps a child in need through a program called Clicks for a Cause. Clicks for a Cause has been helping children in need since 2013! For every visit during the month of November, my blog as well as other sponsors will contribute to the medical fund of a child in need. For more information, check out my Clicks for a Cause Page! How can you help?
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I'm always looking for new Add-Ons to try out in Google Docs, Sheets, Forms, and now Slides. One particularly helpful tool is the Highlighter Add-On for Google Docs. Want to see it in action? Check out my video below:
Conclusion:
Students can use this tool to highlight text to identify patterns, take notes, and organize information. The Highlighter Add-On then saves your highlights and generates a new document containing your highlights in sequence or organized by color.
This is a helpful tool in any classroom, especially where students need to take notes and identify patterns. What's your favorite Add-On? Leave a comment below.
When you think of GIF's, you might think of funny animated images on social media or text messages. Over the past year, I have learned the value of creating animated GIF's to help enhance step-by-step instructions for students and teachers alike.
How can you create animated GIF's from screen recordings? One possible option is the Bukket Chrome Extension, which allows you to create screen captures and animated GIF recordings on your web browser. Many schools restrict teachers from downloading applications from the Internet, so this may be an option.
How can you create an Animated GIF with Bukket?
First, you will want to make sure that you install the Bukket Chrome Extension. Remember: Chrome Extensions only work in the Chrome Browser.
Next, choose the Bukket extension and choose "Record Selected Area" to record a specific area on your browser window OR you can choose "Record Visible Area" to record your entire open window.
Then, you will choose "Record" to record your GIF. Bukket will capture any action on your screen including your mouse movements.
When you are finished, choose "Stop Recording." This will begin the encoding process, which will take a few moments.
Finally, you can choose "Save" to save your GIF to your device.
After you finish, you will have your very own animated GIF! See my example below:
Conclusion:
There are many great animated GIF creators out there. What are some of your favorites? I would love to hear your ideas. Please leave a comment.
First of all, I want to thank you all for your feedback! After my last post titled 3 Alternatives to YouTube, I received many great ideas from you. Without further adieu, here are 3 more alternatives to YouTube!
# 1 - Watchkin Watchkin is another great YouTube video alternative that I recently learned about. It provides a safe environment for watching YouTube videos, as well as creating a safe URL similar to SafeShare.Tv and NiceTube. Users can also search for YouTube videos within the website, which makes it a very good tool to use in the classroom.
#2 - Embed YouTube Video in Google Slides
If you are looking for an easy way to show videos without the distractions, you might want to try embedding a YouTube video in a Google Slides presentation. Your presentation can be shared with students and they do not have to be distracted by suggested videos.
How does this work?
First, create your Google Slides presentation.
Next, you will choose the Insert menu and select "Video."
Then, you will need to search for your YouTube video. As a side note, you can insert videos from Google Drive tool.
Finally, you will choose "Select" to embed your video in your presentation.
# 3 - NearPod
I like NearPod as a presentation tool, but have you ever thought of having students watch YouTube videos via the site / app? This might be a good alternative to YouTube because you can control how long students watch the video and you have the ability to restrict students from visiting other sites.
Simply embed the link of your video in a NearPod slide and students are ready to watch!
Conclusion
Do you have any other alternatives to YouTube? I would love to hear about them! Leave a comment below.
This is a question that I have been pondering in my own life. As many of you know, I set the ambitious goal of interviewing 50 leaders in a one year period. Today marks the ending of a one year journey.
Throughout my journey, I have seen many excellent and poor examples of leaders. I have sat across from leaders who kindly gave up hours of their time to share their experiences with a stranger. Many graciously bestowed their prized life stories, lessons, and resources without any expectation of repayment. Many were kind. Some were egotistical. Most were extremely helpful. Some were surly and curt.
After interviewing 54 different people, I learned that all leaders have a compass for service. The arrow points in one of two directions, towards the leader or others.
The Arrow Towards Me
When the arrow points towards us, we expect others to serve our needs, expectations, and desires. I found this to be true in one leader, who told me in no uncertain terms that he expects his employees to make his preferences their top priority. Although this has helped him "get to the top," has it really?
We have to be careful, because there are other times when we "cloak" the arrow to appear one way, but it is just a disguise for personal gain. Unfortunately, this type of style creates an organization filled with confused and fearful subordinates, who are inefficient and unsure of expectations. This mentality creates fear that produces a cut-throat and power-hungry environment, where it is difficult to trust the actions of leaders within the organization. It is disappointing that leadership becomes a game to get ahead in this type of environment.
The Arrow Towards Others
When the arrow points away from us, we shift the focus from ourselves to others. I know this sounds a little cliche, but the most effective leaders find serving others. One leader that I spoke with talked about how she would visit every single employee every morning. She learned more about his employees' lives, motivations, interests, and abilities.
Travis Roy
One of the best examples of the arrow pointing towards others is in the life of Travis Roy. For the first 20 years of his life, Travis was an accomplished hockey player. All he wanted to be was a hockey player. Everything else fell secondary.
Travis received a scholarship to Division I hockey-powerhouse Boston University. In the first game of his freshman season, he received an opportunity to play. Within 11 seconds, his career and hockey career was over. Travis was the victim of a freak accident, leaving him paralyzed for the rest of his life.
It's hard to have your arrow point towards others, especially when you have such a life-changing injury. It's hard to not succumb to bitterness in the midst of such difficulties, but Travis had a desire to make more of an impact. He desired to be more than "just a hockey player." He wanted to make a difference in the lives of others.
With this passion in mind, he created the Travis Roy Foundation. The foundation is designed to change the lives of spinal-injury victims, through raising money for research and grants. The organization inspires, raises awareness, and gives hope to thousands of spinal-injury victims and their families.
Conclusion:
Travis Roy is an example of the benefit of turning your arrow towards others. Each time we turn the arrow to serve others, we serve ourselves. We give ourselves life, hope, and meaning to live. Turning the arrow towards others is one of the most life-changing things that any person or leader can do.
As a secondary teacher, I used YouTube as a teaching tool on a regular basis. Although it has improved over time, questionable content sometimes appeared in the suggested videos section. Since my move into the elementary level as a Learning Technologies Specialist, I have began to search for alternatives to YouTube. Here are 3 alternatives to YouTube:
# 1 - NicerTube
I just came across NicerTube in searching for YouTube alternatives. It is very easy to use. You simply copy and paste the URL of a YouTube video, choose a creative background, and NicerTube creates your video.
Want to see an example? Check out my video tutorial from a previous post. I love the fact that this tool is free, easy-to-use, and allows you to make as many videos as you would like; however, it does contain advertisements.
# 2 - SafeShare.TV SafeShare.TV is extremely easy to use and customize to the needs of your students. You simply copy and paste the URL of any YouTube or Vimeo video and SafeShare.TV generates a new URL. You can customize when your video starts, the title of your video, the description, or whether you want to hide buttons to control the video. Once your video generates a unique SafeShare.TV URL, your video is protected and students will no longer see previews to other videos.
What I don't like is that you have to have an account to create a video; however, you can easily use your Google or Facebook account to link to SafeShare.TV. The free version also limits you to 20 videos per month. Check out pricing information for more.
# 3 - Google Drive
If you are creating your own videos, you may want to consider using Google Drive as a place to house and share your videos too. If you are a G Suite school, then you realize that you have unlimited storage space. This strategy limits what students are exposed to because they will only see your video in a preview window.
How does this work?
Simply upload your video to Google Drive, which may take a few minutes to upload and encode.
After your video is ready, click on the 3 vertical dots (right-side of your screen) and choose share.
Click on "Get Shareable Link" icon and select "Anyone with Link Can View."
Copy the URL and share away!
Conclusion:
Do you have other alternatives to YouTube? I would love to hear your ideas. Feel free to leave a comment below.
Choice is an important aspect of student engagement. If we know that it works, why do we sometimes limit the amount of choice that we give students? I know that it is not always appropriate or possible, but there are always ways to provide options.
With this in mind, I decided to combine the idea of a Tic Tac Toe board and choices. There are many great examples across the Internet of educators using this idea to create assignments. Here is an idea that I created:
Here are 5 tips for creating your own assignment Tic Tac Toe board:
1. State Your Goals
If you notice, because humans are naturally goal-oriented, I provided the goal for each section. We need to understand "why" we are doing something; therefore, I stated it in clear terms (i.e. find a current event, summarize, share your opinion).
2. Clear Goals, Require Clear Assessments
Although it is important to share your goals, it is also important to have a rubric communicating specific behaviors and actions. Students should have access to your rubric. Avoid Likert scales 1 - 5 without any description of the behaviors!
3. Structured Options
Too many options creates the burden of choice. I have learned to provide students with a few structured choices. My Tic Tac Toe board provides students with the ability to construct (hand written or typed) or create (with audio or video). In my experience, if students have too many options, they will sit there and do nothing.
4. Scaffolds and Supports
In any assignment, there are always high-probability barriers. It may be helpful to provide scaffolds, supports, and examples of what you are talking about. In the Tic Tac Toe board, I provided several different scaffolds and supports. For example, I suggested approximately 2 -3 tools they should consider when doing the project, such as Google Docs, QuickTime, etc.
I also placed arrows on the Tic Tac Toe board as examples of what diagonal or vertical mean. Why? This can be a difficult concept for some students.
5. Create an Electronic Version
If your students have access to technology, I would create an electronic version of your Tic Tac Toe board. Why? It provides students with visual difficulties with the opportunity to zoom in and out. Students can print out copies if they lost the copy you handed out. Hyperlinks provide an interactive component to take students to various resources.
Conclusion:
Have you created your own Tic Tac Toe board? I would love to hear about it! Please share a comment below.
Google Forms is quickly becoming one of my favorite formative assessment tools. In the past, you used to have to limit self-grading questions on Google forms to multiple choice, checklists, and dropdown menus.
Google recently made an update to Forms, which allows users to create self-grading quizzes with short answers. How does it work?
Step 1: Choose the Settings Button (Gear Icon)
Choose the Settings button, select the Quizzes tab, and turn on the Make this a Quiz feature. Make sure that you save your progress!
Step 2: Create Your Question
Create your question on Google Forms. Type in your question and make sure that "Short Answer" is selected.
Step 3: Add Your Correct Answers
While you are still editing your question, select "Answer Key" and enter in all of your possible short answers. You will also want to select the box containing "Mark All Other Answers as Incorrect" and add a point value for your question.
NOTE: If you want students to type text or numbers a certain way, you can use the description and response validation features of Google Forms. Make sure that you are back in the editing feature of your question in order to access this.
The description section is useful for writing a helpful hint, such as "Capitalize the first letter!"
The response validation feature is useful for restricting responses to a certain type of answer. For example, you may want to limit responses to numbers and whole numbers.
Student engagement is a highly debated issue in education today. Brain research has revealed that we can engage students through recruiting interest, sustaining effort and persistence, and helping develop self-regulation skills (CAST, 2017).
Providing timely feedback is one way to create engagement and help sustain student effort and persistence. ClassKick is an excellent tool to provide students with engaging assignment, monitor progress, and provide timely feedback. ClassKick is free and is available for students to use on an iPad, Chromebook, laptop, or desktop.
Features
There is a paid version of ClassKick; however, the free version offers many great tools and resources for both teachers and students in the classroom.
View "live" student work and write real-time feedback. You can watch your students as they progress through a lesson without any expensive monitoring software.
Share content through text, written instructions, audio recordings, text, links, and images.
Students can "raise their hand" if they have any questions. Teachers can see who has a question and offer timely help.
Real-time feedback is enhanced with the ability to add teacher comments, pre-made feedback stickers, annotate student's work, and grade assignments.
You can enable student helpers, who provide feedback to other students.
Want to know more? Check out the ClassKick in 1 Minute video below:
How do I get started?
First, visit the ClassKick website or open the App to to create a free account.
Next, you will want to create your first assignment. Add content in the form of text, audio, images, and recordings.
Finally, open your assignment and share with your students by using the ClassKick App and entering your class code.
Have you ever wanted to share highlighted information from a website with someone? How do you typically solve this dilemma? Do you print out the document and physically hand it to someone else? Not only is this practice time consuming, it is also quickly becoming obsolete.
Marker.to
The Chrome Extension Marker.to gives you the ability to annotate and send your webpages to others. Simply highlight text on a webpage (using a yellow highlighter), click on the Marker.to extension icon to highlight your text, and send the text to someone else via social media or a link. The other person does not need the extension installed or even use the Chrome browser to see what you highlighted!
How does it work?
Watch my brief video below:
Conclusion
This is a great tool for students and teachers alike. Someone using this tool can find and highlight valuable information on the Internet without the need for special software, apps, or extensions!
I also like the fact that you can keep analytical information (the number of clicks) to your link. This is a great way to keep your students accountable - if you are sending them information and want them to check out a highlighted webpage that you created. You can do this by clicking on the My Markers link on the Marker.to webpage.
Writing is an essential skill for students and even adults to master. There are dozens of tools on the Internet designed to help correct grammar, spelling, and improve your writing skills. Here are a few of my favorites!
1. Paper Rater
Paper Rater is a free online tool to correct grammar and spelling errors. Simply upload or copy and paste your text in the site. Then answer a few questions about the type of paper you are writing and the education level at which you are writing.
Paper Rater will analyze your paper for common errors and suggest improvements to your writing. There is even a proofreading feature available on the Pro Version. I love the fact that you can use this tool online, it gives you a suggested "grade," and even provides resources for improving your writing.
2. Grammarly
Grammarly is also a free tool available on your Chrome browser or for download on your Mac or PC. Grammarly is an excellent tool for correcting grammar and spelling errors. Although it does not have a "suggested grade," feature, it does provide you with a way to quickly check your documents, emails, and even form submissions for spelling and grammar errors. Not only does the tool provide you with spelling and grammar checking, it also provides a built tool for suggesting new words. I like the fact that Grammarly forces you to login to the application, so that you can save your work across different devices.
3. After the Deadline (Polish My Writing)
After the Deadline (previously known as Polish My Writing) is another free tool to enhance your writing abilities. I like the fact that this particular free tool is simplistic, yet very effective. Just like Paper Rater, you will copy and paste your writing into the website. The tool scans your document and color codes spelling errors (red), grammar suggestion (green), and style suggestion (blue). I like that this tool provides you with suggestions for your writing style. You can make corrections or get an explanation on how to improve the suggestion, simply by clicking on the underlined word.
4. BibMe
If you or your students write papers, then you know that creating citations and references are extremely important. I have always loved Citation Machine, but I just found a new tool that I really like. It is called Bib Me. Although it has been around for some time, I recently found it. I like it for several reasons. First, it has a very simplistic interface, which makes creating a bibliography extremely useful.
For example, you can just copy and paste the URL, title, or ISBN of your resource and EasyBib can generate a bibliography. If you have more sources to add, you can keep adding to it and then download!
There are times when teachers and students alike feel completely overwhelmed. The stress of a deadline, the pressure of an assignment, or time constraints can create stress in our lives. How we manage stress can impact our grades, decisions, and even professional reputation.
There has been a lot of press about the power of yoga, guided breathing, meditation and mindfulness in today's schools. Over the past year, I have experimented with and found many benefits of guided breathing, meditation, and mindfulness. It may sound great, but how can you get started?
Do Nothing for 2 Minutes
Do Nothing for 2 Minutes is an easy-to-use website with a simplistic objective. Simply visit the site and do nothing for 2 minutes.
Once you visit the site, you will hear the sounds of the ocean and see the picture of a sunset. You are encouraged to relax and do absolutely nothing for 2 minutes. A clock will appear on your screen with a 2 minute countdown. If you move your mouse or touch your keyboard, the timer will restart back to 2 minutes.
Conclusion:
Whether you are using it with students or yourself, this is a great tool that you can use to calm your mind, alleviate stress, and refocus.
If you are like me, you probably need a scanner to scan documents from time to time. There are many great scanner Apps available for your device. Some of my favorites are Cam Scanner and Genius Scan - PDF Scanner.
If you are not familiar with how this works, check out my video tutorial on Cam Scanner below:
Have you tried Google Earth lately? Whether you are using the mobile, web, Mac or PC version, you should definitely give this tool a try. Although there are many great versions of Google Earth, I want to showcase the iOS version today!
Here are 3 ways you can use iOS Google Earth in the classroom.
1. Random Location Writing Prompts
Google Earth's I'm Feeling Lucky feature (dice icon) takes you to a random location. Have your students practice their writing skills by describing the location or creating a story. Your students can use Street View (Pegman icon) and information cards to add details to their stories!
2. Take Virtual Field Trips
Use the Voyager feature to take your students on virtual field trips. Choose from a variety of different voyages involving editor's pics, travel, nature, culture, history, and education. When you select a voyage, you can start exploring through a local guide, which includes information, maps, images, street view, and photospheres.
3. Student-Created Field Trips
Need to have your students create a quick field trip to share with the class? There are many great tools out there, including the desktop version of Google Earth and Google Tour Builder. If you are limited on time, work with students under the age of 13, or need something quick, you can use several of the features of iOS to quickly create a field trip and dump slides into Google Slides.
Step 1: Search for Your Location - Use the search tool to find specific locations.
Step 2: Take a Screenshot - Use the street view, 2D, or 3D tools to get the perfect view of your location. Taking a screenshot can be difficult for younger students on an iOS device. Google Earth has a screenshot icon (camera), which will take a screenshot of your location instead!
Step 3: Share Your Location - Use the Share icon (box with arrow pointing up) to get a link to your location.
Step 4: Dump Your Link and Screenshot into Google Slides - simply paste your location link (from step 3) and insert your screenshot (from step 2).
Want to make this experience even better? Create a shared class presentation. Have students work as a class to create a class field trip through a collaborative presentation.
How does it work? 
