Google Classroom Updated April 21, 2015

Google updated Classroom with some key features today.  You now have the ability to add co-teachers, who can do everything but delete the class, by going to the About page and clicking the Invite button.

You can also save Announcements or Assignments posts until later.  Create it now as a draft and then submit it when you want to.  This allows you to easily plan ahead without students being able to see it ahead of time or work on it.  Just click on the down arrow next to Post.

You can also apparently save grades without returning the documents and email notifications were improved.  You can find more about the updates by going to Google's own post about them, http://googleforeducation.blogspot.com/2015/04/teaching-teams-new-ways-to-work.html.

Now to wait for Calendar integration, last big feature I know a lot of people want that seems feasible.  

gMath for Google Forms Update

gMath is an Add-on for Google Forms (and Docs, Sheets) that allows you to easily create, and insert, mathematical equations and graphs.  It uses the LaTeX equation editor to allow you to quickly use buttons, or write it all out yourself, to insert the equations or graphs into a Google Form.  With the recent update, you can quickly allow students to use gMath to submit their own answers using the equation, graph, or handwriting editor.  This Add-on makes it very easy to create graphs and equations as well as allowing students the ability to do the same.  More gMath info can be found at http://www.gmath.guru/

UPDATED 4-23-15: Handwriting entries now are inserted directly into the document, you do not need to convert them into written text.  

                     

 

ALSO - You can go from handwritting into LaTex using https://webdemo.myscript.com/#/demo/equation

Watch the video below to see how it works.

Digital Tools To Support Collaboration

Something that may be difficult for many people to do well, is to work with others in a truly collaborative way.  Too often we end up working in a group that is inefficient and detracts from our intended goal.  This is true for teachers and students alike.  There are some ways that we can improve how we work together as a team in a collaborative way using technology.  The following are just some suggestions and if you have any others, please let me know.

• Shared Google Drive Folder - Make it easy to share files back and forth by having folder that is shared with everyone in the team.  This will make it easier than having to email it back and forth, and you will be able to share things by just moving them to the folder.  The sharing permissions for the folder are carried over to any file that is placed into the folder, although you could still modify the sharing settings of the individual files as needed.  Just make sure that everyone with editing rights to that folder knows that if you remove it from the folder, the others will not be able to see it or access it unless they were the owner.  (You could always make a copy if you needed that file elsewhere but then the others would not be able to see any edits or make their own edits in the copy.)
• Shared Google Calendar - Make it easier to keep track of important dates by simply creating a Google Calendar and adding the other people as editors of the Calendar.  Just create the calendar by clicking the down arrow next to "My calendars" and selecting "Create new calendar".  Add the other team members in the "Share with specific people" section and make sure they can "Make changes AND manage sharing" so they can add to the calendar, edit entries, and share it out with other people.  Remember that you can also access your Google Calendars on any smarthphone or tablet, meaning you always have access to it.

• Shared Curation Tool - Often times teams will be sharing resources back and forth using email or some other way that is just not quick or efficient.  You should not have to search through an email chain to find that resource that was shared with you.  Instead, use a curation tool and share that with the team so each person can add to it.  Some great options would be Padlet, Flipboard, Scoop-it, an Evernote notebook, or Pocket.  Padlet is an easy one to use since, like others, it has a Chrome extension so you can quickly add to the Padlet with the click of a button.  Make sure that whatever tool that you use is easily shared with each person and allows for quick addition of future resources.  You could even create a separate Padlet wall for each of the main units or topics.
• Google+ Community - You can easily create a closed Google+ Community and only have the members of your team as people who can see or post in the community.  This means you can easily share resources, carry out conversations, or ask questions in a safe and easy to use space.  Since it is part of the Google Apps, you can easily share files from your Google Drive or images that are in your Google+ space (or Drive when that changes).  This is another tool that is easy to use and can be quickly accessed using a smartphone so you can always be able to collaborate.
• Voxer - If you want to be able to communicate quickly with your team members, Voxer can allow you to do this easily.  It is a free app that can be installed on Android or iOS phones and allows you to leave voice or text messages for the others to hear/read.  You can have a conversation happen over a period of time and easily go back to what was said/shared.  This could be a really useful tool when you are dealing with something where you need to quickly explain something or share something with your group, where text would not be the easiest way.

While those are the main ideas that you can easily implement, there are some other ideas that may not work for everyone, but can make some aspect of collaborating together easier.

• Use Google Classroom to share resources and carry out digital conversations.
• Use a hashtag on social media to share resources and ideas with other members.
• Use Movenote to share ideas and explain resources or documents.
• Use Google Hangouts to have a video chat with other members if you can't be at the same place at the same time, you could even record these for later use.
• Add team members as editors on Google Forms you use in your classroom so they can see the student data to make conversations more focused on students.

What other ways can we use technology to better help our teams work more effectively and efficiently.  Remember though, that if the team does not work in a collaborative way, technology will not improve things one bit.  You need to make sure that your team has a clear focus and understands what it takes to work as a team instead of just a group of people.

Tackk to Create, Share, Collaborate

Tackk is a great tool that you can use to let students create, share, and collaboration.  It is very simple to get started and easy to use.  You can use your Google+ account to log-in and can share out using any of the many built-in options.  Tackk has connections to many other tools to easily allow you to pull in other creations or media, such as YouTube, Thinglink, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, .......  This makes it a great tool to create your own work or to pull in work from others in order to answer a question or solve a problem.  Tackk also has some chat tools built-in that make it easy to have conversations or to allow students to collaborate.  You can turn off the anonymous comment feature and make this as private as you want, but the ability to share out would be diminished if you do not share.

Give Tackk a look and I am sure you will find ways it can be a useful resource for students, at least give it to them as an option the next time you ask them to create, share, or collaborate.

Vialogues to Have Video Dialogues

Vialogues is another tool that you can easily use to add some interactivity or functionality to videos.  There are a ton of videos out there that can be used in the classroom and you can even create your own videos to use with your students.  Vialogues allows you to easily add questions or comments to a video so that you can check for understanding or promote thought while students watch a video.  Students could also leave their own comments on the video so you could have a running conversation about what the video is saying or have the students accomplish a task related to the video, such as connecting it their previous learning or using it to practice the application of a foreign language.

Vialogues is free and easy to use, give it a look by watching the video below and then create your own to see how you can use it with your students.

Below is an example of one that I made, please note that this was made just to test it out so the questions/comments are not to the quality you would want to use with students.