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US Census Bureau Site - 10/2019 article about the 1929 Stock Market Crash The US Census Bureau has a History area where a monthly article is published, sharing a historical event along with interesting facts, economic impact, and other tidbits - all using census data and records.  They provide an archive where you can find past articles:

If you are using Google Classroom quite a bit for your students, it is worth taking the time to add the Guardian accounts as a way to communicate home with students.  An important piece worth noting - when you add the Guardians, it ties that email to the student's account NOT your Classroom.  This means if two teachers have the same students only one of them has to add the guardian and it is available for both Classrooms. If you have this feature turned on, parents/guardians that have their email tied to the students can opt to receive an email daily or weekly with missing work, upcoming work that is due, and general information about happenings that week.  They cannot see student work from it.  Important to note - they can be signed up with ANY email (they do not have to have a Gmail account). How to enable and set up Guardian accounts: When in your Classroom, click on the People tab - Click on Invite guardian next the student's name - Start typing in...

I had a first today - I was asked to prepare some data for an upload, and phone number was one of the fields.  Unfortunately, the numbers needed to be divided into area code, prefix, suffix and extension.  Ugh!  Add to that some phone numbers were all numbers, while others had periods, dashes and/or parenthesis in them.  So, I ended up using 2 methods to prepare it for a data upload.  In this post, we will first review using the LEFT & RIGHT functions - useful functions if you ever need to select just some of an entry.  Then we will revisit using the SPLIT function, along with this application of it.  LEFT & RIGHT functions This was the quick way to divide the phone numbers that had no punctuation or text entered with them.  First - the functions: LEFT - copies only the designated number of characters beginning on the left side of the entry RIGHT - copies only the designated number of characters beginning on the right side of t...

(Today's blog will wrap up the Classwork section in your Google Classroom.)  Sometimes you want to access materials - including assignments turned in by students - in your Drive instead of in Classroom.  This is possible, but it is really important to understand where this folder is located and NOT DELETE certain parts so that your Classroom can continue to run smoothly. To access your Class Drive Folder: When in your classroom, click on Classwork - Look in the upper right corner for the Class Drive folder, click on it - This will open up your Google Drive into the class folder.  The name of the class will be the final listing within the breadcrumb trail - All resources and assignments shared within the course will be within this folder.  Those that are assignments and students are turning in work will be in a folder.  Resources will be listed at the bottom.  Additionally, there will a Templates folder - this folder contains any of the ite...

Teachers - check out the US Census Bureau's Statistics in School (SIS) .  A plethora of resources for you - and since it is a .gov site, they are public domain (free to use). Find Activities and Resources A variety of activities searchable by either curriculum area or grade level are provided free on the site.  New activities have been added designed specifically for the 2020 Census.  You and your students can also find: Maps, Data Access Tools, Historical Documents and Images, Constitution Day resources and more.   Seeking Ambassadors Apply to be a teacher ambassador by October 24. Making sure ALL children are counted is especially important for education. 2020 Census responses will drive decisions on how more than $675 billion in federal funds will be distributed each year for the next 10 years to educational programs. The U.S. Census Bureau’s Statistics in Schools (SIS) is looking for ambassadors in all 50 states, D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samo...

Sometimes you want to move a topic to the top of the Classwork section to highlight it for students that need that focus.  Or maybe you accidentally assigned an item to the wrong topic, and need to re-assign it.  It is easy to reorganize items within your Classroom as long as they are within your Classwork section (this does not work for items in the stream). To organize your Classwork: When in the Classroom click on Classwork- To make modifications to a topic, you can click on the More menu (3 stacked dots)- You will get several options - 1 - Rename: will bring up the window below to change the name 2 - Delete: will delete the topic (but not the posts assigned to it) 3 - Copy link: will copy link you can use with students to direct them to the specific topic 4 - Move up/down: will let you reorder the topics You can also move topics by dragging & dropping - Additionally, you can reorder items OR add them to a topic by dragging and dropping -...

The Quiz assignment is a bit different than other items in Classroom.  It actually creates a new form that is created from a template that has the quiz features of a form turned on and setup.  What is nice about using this instead of providing a link to a form from Classroom: you can use a locked mode (if students are using Chromebooks managed by your domain), the results of the "quiz" can be loaded back into Classroom, and the Quiz settings are already turned on for you within the form.  All of these help save time, and keep your students where they should be :) To create a Quiz Assignment in the Classwork area: Within the Classroom, click Classwork at the top - Click on the Create button - Select Quiz assignment - This will bring up the window that is similar to other types of items you might add.  There are a few differences - 1. You can use a locked mode if students are using Chromebooks are managed by your domain 2. You can choose to impo...

Reusing a post in the Classwork area of Google Classroom allows you to copy an assignment (or question, quiz or material) from any other Classroom to your current one.  It is a nice way to copy and modify an assignment that is similar to one you already have used.  Or it can be a nice way to copy an assignment from another class into the current one. To reuse an item: When in the course you want to add the item to, click on Classwork - Click on Create - Select Reuse post - In the window that pops up, you can see the assignments you have already created in the current course.  If you are copying one from this course to modify, find and select it here - If you want an assignment from another course, click the arrow at the top left - Find the course you which to copy from, select it.  Then select the item you wish to use from the list that shows up -