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When looking at your classroom list, you may have courses where you have different roles - some you are the "teacher" and some you are the "student."  There are a few subtle difference between the 2 roles, and it helps to know what they are. Item Teacher Student 1. Header Info # of students Student Name 2. Picture none Google Account picture 3. bottom left icon Classroom Gradebook Work for course 4. bottom right icon Google Drive folder for course Google Drive folder for course

The Henry Ford and Litton Entertainment are proud to sponsor a third year of The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation Teacher Innovator Awards ! Looks like a great opportunity. From The Henry Ford: Do you know a teacher who has inspired others to challenge the limits of what’s possible? Who encourages others to create bold solutions? We are looking for teachers who demonstrate an original and creative approach to teaching, exhibit resourcefulness, engage students, and are making a positive impact on not only their classroom but their community, colleagues, administrators, school, and/or district. We want to know what makes these teachers innovative? How do they define innovation? How do they convey innovation to their students? Twenty teachers in total will receive prizes, with the top ten grand prize winners receiving a five-day long “Innovation Immersion Experience” at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan. Winners will be announced in June.  The aw...

It is very easy to add a co-teacher to your Google Classroom.  If you have whitelisted domains with your domain, you can even have a co-teacher from another domain!  Here's how: Go to the People area and click the little icon of the person with the plus sign -  Type in the name or email of the person you wish to add -  You can add multiple names at one time.  OR you can even paste a list of emails in to add a larger number.  When done, click Invite -  They will show up under the Teachers list, grayed out with (invited) next to their name -  They will get an email inviting them to join - It will give them a message confirming that they are joining with the correct email address -  Once they have joined, they will be displayed in black (the invited will be gone) - 

Just received this.  I think it would be a great opportunity to attend! Cyber Innovation Center Resource Showcase ...for teachers and admins. Feb 11, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. , Aeronautic Building Capital City Airport, Lansing, MI.  Share with middle/high school teachers (math, science, tech, CTE). Opportunity for integration into ongoing and emerging programming for open education resources. Registration and info: http://goo.gl/forms/ti6q4YABRS

Teacher Exchange Program - for Teachers in Branch, Calhoun, Hillsdale & Jackson Counties (Michigan) The new Teacher Exchange program is designed to give teachers the opportunity to visit other classrooms from the region to see "real world" practices for blended learning and digital formative assessments. Graduates of 21 Things are given first priority to be part of a cohort that will go on the visits!  This includes: ​2 visits between Jan-May Sub costs covered Guided discussion with the cohort and a teacher-facilitator on the day of the visits A few brief follow up surveys See more details and apply:  http://teacherexchange. weebly.com/ I really hope to see many of you take advantage of this and be able to bring some important conversations and practices back to your building! Your foundation from 21 Things really equips you to be ready to take the next steps, and getting a new perspective from other classrooms can often times lead to ...

Teachers have all kinds of tools in their tool belt - when these are online tools, it can become confusing and time consuming for students to get to where they need to be!  The Gather Your Tools pd opportunity is a hands-on session over two days where teachers will set up a Moodle 2.7 course as a launching pad for all their online tools, providing a one stop location for their students to go to whenever online activities are involved.  When:  December 11 (4:00 - 8:30) and December 12 (8:30 - 3:00) Where: Calhoun Area Career Center; 475 E Roosevelt Ave; Battle Creek, MI Cost: $50* *FREE for educators located in REMC 12E (Calhoun and Branch Counties) - provided as a REMC 12E service   Register here ! General Agenda:   https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ZMvrAUVx-_2QSPlP_NLhorNIkVHd0g4m0pbiLuq1PE/edit?usp=sharing Program Goal : Participants will have a course ready to use with students the next day.   Objectives : build familiarity with wha...

What to do when you have graded a majority of assignments...but you know there will be a handful that will still be coming in?  Remembering to go check for those assignments can be bad enough, but repeatedly checking for them when nothing new is in there yet is even worse. Yet, if you get notified as ALL assignments are submitted you end up spamming your own inbox. Here's a little trick you can use to get notification ONLY on those late submissions for a particular assignment: Non video directions: Under the Assignment Description, check the box to Enable the Due Date for the assignment.  It will use the current server date and time Under Notifications, turn on notifications for late submissions

I am often asked by people what they should buy for their classrooms - an iPad, a Chromebook or a laptop (I know there are also Android tablets out there, but I haven't been asked about those in the classroom yet!).   This is a very difficult question to answer for several reasons, but mainly due to the fact that we are focusing on the device not the needs.   You see, these are all distinct devices and each serves a different need.   This is not to say that a person has to actually use all three devices, as there is some overlap.   So the questions we should be asking are “What capabilities do our teachers/students/administrators need from their device?” and then “What capabilities might we want our teachers/students/administrators to be able to do in the future?”   If we instead evaluate our needs based on these questions, we get a clearer picture of which device is a best fit.  For instance, if we determine that the need is for web-based service...

One of the newer features within Moodle is the availability of completion status.  As an instructor, you can turn this on (as long as it has been enabled at the server level) and then use it to help students "track" which items they have completed within your course. Advantages of this feature:  There are several advantages: If you do not use the gradebook, it gives an alternative way for students to track their progress It is flexible by activity so you can set completion "standards" such as a grade or action, or even set it so students can mark it themselves It can be used in conjunction with contingencies, so activities can be dependent on each other (students have to complete one activity to see or do another) Disadvantages of the feature:  There are a couple drawbacks to using this feature as well: While a default can be set within your course, if you set parameters for completion it has to be set on each activity It has to be enabled at the server lev...

MyScript Calculator Basics:  MyScript Calculator allows you to handwrite the equations and then it converts it to type text while solving it.  This eliminates the back & forth movement from selecting numbers and mathematical symbols from a selection screen.  It handles fractions, factorials, exponentials, trigonometry, logarithms in addition to basic math operations. Drawbacks :  Be careful if you are doing equations - you cannot use an "x" as it reads that as a multiplication symbol.  However, you can use other variable symbols. Current Costs:   currently FREE! Link to iTunes Store:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/ app/myscript-calculator/ id578979413?mt=8

Some people have expressed frustration to me because "things just happen" while they are in their email.  Typically, as we tend to be short of possessed devices, it is because they have unintentionally used one or more of the built in email shortcuts. So, how do you know the shortcuts?  And, how can you turn them off (or on)? Well, to know they are enabled or not, you need to check your email settings.  To do this go to the gear and select Settings: Once the settings are displayed, make sure you are looking at the General Settings, and scroll down until you see Keyboard shortcuts: .  This will tell you if they are on or off: Turn them on or off, as desired, and make sure to "Save Changes" at the bottom of the window.  You may go through these steps as often as you wish. If the shortcuts are on, to see what shortcuts are available to you (and this is true in any of the Google Apps) at any time you can use the question mark to view them (hit...

How to Enable Mobile Secure Browser Using Configurator The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium provides directions for how to access the secure testing environment on individual devices. They even provide a pdf document specifically " About the Secure Browsers for iPad and Android Tablets ."   But what about if you manage your devices using Apple Configurator? Here are the directions for setting it up using Configurator - and the beauty is you don't have to touch each device individually! First, the device must be supervised for this to work.  If it isn’t, you will first need to supervise it.   Please remember - that when you supervise a device it is completely wiped to factory settings. Setting up: Download AIRSecure Test https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/airsecuretest/id607002517?mt=8 Add AIRSecure Test to your apps list in Configurator Select the device(s) or the group(s) of devices Add AIRSecure Test as one of the apps on the device ...

Let me begin by saying I am not a lawyer, nor am I speaking as a representative of Apple.  However, in my job I am consistently having to educate teachers on the how the terms and conditions apply in these situations: how their personal Apple Accounts work with devices they own versus how their personal Apple Accounts work with devices supplied by a school how a device is used personally versus how it is used in a school setting the different rules concerning where apps can be downloaded, and how many devices a singly purchased app can be used on I've color coded the information so that green text is a direct copy/paste from the Terms and Conditions.  That is followed by my interpretation of the it, why it is important and how it might impact a teacher. If you see any inaccuracies, please feel free to let me know as this is certainly a work in progress. (Terms & Conditions Version - updated December 3, 2012) APP STORE PRODUCT USAGE RULES: “ (iii) You s...

  Unbeknownst to many, there are various question types that can be added to Moodle to make quizzes more flexible - and more like some of the question types students may see elsewhere (read that - national testing...).  I'm going to demonstrate various question types over the next several weeks. Open University has created a whole host of question types.  Today we are looking at the "Drag and Drop Into Text" question.   Here is a video overview of how to set it up and use it: (This question types working on Moodle 2.1 forward; I am showing it running on Moodle 2.4. This addition must be added to your Moodle server by a Moodle Administrator.) Moodle Plugins - Drag & Drop into Text   Drag & Drop into Text   Documentation

Moodle 2.4 was just released, with several updates that teachers might find useful.  Some of the latest features include: Ability to stream in outside calendars - my calendar of choice is my Google calendar for a variety of reasons; the ability to use this within a Moodle course instead of maintaining a separate calendar is a huge time-saver! Ability to view student submissions on the page I am grading and providing comments - in 2.3 this was broken; I'm glad to say the restored it so now I can be writing my comments in the same window where I am reading the student's assignment, allowing me to provide more specific feedback. Blind marking of assignments - teachers can now turn on blind marking of assignments so they do not see student names while grading, a great way to help ensure you are providing objective feedback and grades. Group assignments - if you use groups, you can now assign an activity to a specific group, even requiring all group members to have submit...

If you haven't checked these out yet, you really should!   The "Connected Educator Series" is a REMC project that "brings the ideas and practices of exceptional technology using Michigan educators right to teachers and administrators in an easy to access, easy to use, cost effective manner." There are multiple ways to access these short videos: The REMC Connected Educator Project page: http://www.remc.org/projects/connectededucator/ Via MI Learning within iTunes U or the iTunes Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/remc-connected-educator-series/id500174611 On REMC MI Streamnet: REMC MI Streamnet Another resource that is free to all.

One of the updates to Moodle 2.4 was the ability to do what is called "offline grading." What does that mean for a teacher that would like to utilize it? Well, this DOES NOT mean that you stay on your Moodle site in the browser and attempt to grade when you do not have Internet access.  Instead, it created a way that a teacher may download all submissions - whether they be uploaded files or online submissions - in a folder with a couple clicks, and read these when not on the Internet. To use this feature, you simply: Click on the Assignment name Under the Assignment Administration, select "Download all submissions" A zipped folder containing all the submitted assignments will be created and downloaded to your computer.  You can unzip the folder and view all the assignments that were submitted at the time you downloaded them. You will not have access to the gradbook (if you use it) when viewing the assignments, but you could put grades into a spreadshe...

I often get asked about the differences between a "secondary" glossary and "main" glossary.  There are a couple key items to know about them: You can only have one (1) main glossary per course Items do not "auto-populate" - you have to import them in Here's a quick video showing how to import from a secondary glossary to a main glossary: http://youtu.be/73HIaesQR5M