Digital Citizenship at ECOO 2015

Last week I had the opportunity to once again attend and present at ECOO's BringIT Conference.



This is my third year attending and second year presenting.  I got to present with 4 amazing colleagues and friends on the ever important and ever changing world of Digital Citizenship.

We presented on Friday, and seeing as it was the last day, I expected 15-25 people.  We ended up with a packed room, and that was OK.

Anyway, I'm not going to through the full 50 minutes.  I am going to take this time to say:

a) Change is good
             - This was usually a 1-2 man, 1 1/2 hour workshop, but we had 50 minutes and 5 guys.
               So we went with a panel.  And it worked!!!

b) ECOO puts on one of the best conferences with workshops run by educators, tech guys, administrators and innovative leaders.   The food is amazing, the venue is so well organized, and the amazing vendors who show their wares are leaders in our profession.

So, below you will find a quick highlight of our workshop (main points), and the link to our "Take-Away" for attendees.  You can always contact me at parkerri@hdsb.ca if you have further questions.  I hope to blog more in the upcoming weeks, especially focussing on my SERT role.

*** The Take-Away has the main things we discussed, resources and other articles to read around Digital Citizenship.

Digital Citizenship Highlights

• Digital Citizenship is
• is a concept which helps us to understand what technology users should know in order to use technology appropriately.
• more than just guide to teaching technology; it is a way to PREPARE technology users (our students) for a society complete with technology.
• designed to help EDUCATE students about the norms of appropriate, responsible technology use.
• is also teaching students to create things (websites, videos etc.), to be a part of the Global Digital Community.
• Teacher Responsibilities
1. Understand what is out there
2. Prepare students for a tech-saturated world
3. Educate students about the norms of technology use.

• Age Appropriate Lessons (What students know)
• Starting point by Division:
  Primary - email, web search, IPODS/IPADS
  Junior - email, web search, devices, chat applications, Twitter
               YouTube, #’s
  Intermediate/Senior (Generation Like) - cell phones, Facebook, Instagram, #s, Vine, twitter, Snapchat, ask.fm, yik yak!
• We use:
• Daily Talks
• Relevant "recent" news topics
• Relating to real life
• Refer to "stars" misuse
• Refer to "average Joe" misuse
• Be creative
• Have them write a letter to "Future Me" promising not to make a specific technology mistake (inappropriate pictures, cyber-bullying etc.)

The rest of the main points AND RESOURCES can be found on the take away linked below.

The Take Home 

Using the "About" section in Google Classroom

Last year was the first year of Google Classroom.   We started with it in mid-September, worked through the personal glitches (ie. mistakes I made), and came up with questions and thoughts on how to improve it.

As I worked through it, one thing I really wanted was a section where I could keep important links, or documents (like organizers) that the class would use frequently.   In talking and tweeting with my PLN (personal learning network), I realized that the ABOUT section was ideal for this.  Check my screen capture below for tips on how to use it.

After you have opened Google Classroom, follow the instructions and start posting links and documents from your DRIVE that students will access and use.  Make sure they have VIEW ONLY and understand how to make their own copy.

Creating a markbook using Google Sheets

Last week, my colleague and I were honoured to once again lead a 3-day workshop for educators through ETFO.  There were many wonderful, yet nervous peers, but once we got going, they really owned their learning.

As per usual, we over-planned, and alluded to many other things we would have liked to teach, and one of the topics that was broached numerous times was, "How do I set up my online markbook?"

This was a great question because there are a few tricks and tips that educators should follow in order to save themselves some time.

I will outline the steps, as well as provide a Youtube video below.  Hope this helps.

Step 1:
Create a folder in your drive titled "Marking <year> <grade level>"  (Example: Marking 2015-16)

Step 2:
Create a sheet called "Master Class List"


Once in the sheet:

Step 3:
Label the first 2 columns - Last Name   - First Name

Step 4:
View>  Freeze  (here you will freeze 1 Row and 2 Columns) - You will have to do each one separately.

Step 5:
Input the student names in columns A and B
The row 1 will be where you put the assessment titles throughout the year

Step 6:
Rename your sheet to "Term 1"

Step 7:
Conditionally Format your cells

Step 8:
Duplicate your Sheet and rename it "Term 2"

Step 9:
Make copies of your Master List for each subject/strand that you teach and rename them

Step 10: (Optional)
Make folders within your marking folder and organize them by subject

Contact me at: parkerri@hdsb.ca if you have any questions, or follow me on Twitter @TeacherParker

First Summer Post - Creating Crib on Google Draw

Cribbage (Crib).

   One of the first "adult" card games I remember learning as a kid.  I'd like to think that I have pretty good mental math skills, and I'd like to think that a lot of that comes from my dad's family's love of crib...that and Euchre.

I grew up in rural Scotland, and visited Canada a few times before moving here.  One of my early memories is that on those visits, a crib board was always out, with someone, (cousins, aunts/uncles or grandparents) battling over a game.

If you are not familiar with Crib, you can find the rules here.  It is a lot to explain in the blog, so check the rules out.

Basically the mental math comes in because the students are adding quickly as they place the cards down.  You get bonus points for having 15 in your hand, or reaching 15 in the round.  Players quickly have to pick up on the sequences that make 15, and try to play accordingly to get to 15.  After they get to 15 in the round, they have to try to get to 31, so again, playing your cards strategically works to the players advantage.

Recently, I have been trying to buy as many crib boards as I can.  They aren't cheap, and the cheap ones aren't good.  I hit up Value Village, Dollar Stores, Walmart, but could only get a few.  Finally, brainwave.  Use Google Draw to create a mini-board.  I have to thank @alicekeeler for sharing how to turn a Sheet into grid paper, which enabled me to create the mini crib board.

The students can make their own copy, share it with who they are playing.  As they move around the board, they'd put an X, or a new colour on the space they've moved.  The downside is that they cannot play this from different locations due to the need for cards, but it is a great classroom activity if they complete their math work.... As long as devices are present :)

Crib Board

Enjoy

Introducing... SPACES... a nice little extension

What is Spaces?  It is a tab manager for Chrome.

How did I find it? I found it on a blog...can't remember what one, I've read so many.

How am I using it? I am using it to track, and keep "like" webpages in one common area.

How do I see my students using it? Maintaining research pages without losing them in the never-ending pit of doom called "Bookmarks"

Teacher Use

Ok, self-question and answer period is over.  Spaces is this amazing extension found here.  I looked at it, thought it could be good, but didn't realize the power it had.  Once I opened it and experimented with a few things, I fell in love.

First - Marking.   
I track my marks online.  I have created Google Sheet after Google Sheet.  It is a pain to open drive, then find reporting, then find subject, then find strand....UGH!

Solution:  Open them all in one window.  Save it to spaces under "Marking".  Problem solved.
Now, I only have to open the "Marking" tab in Spaces and there is my online mark book.  

This is what a Spaces main screen looks like.  You can see I have a space open title "May 26".  

My closed spaces are below.  You can see the Marking 2014-15 is there.  

Now, I have clicked on the closed spaces called "Marking 2014-15" and it shows on the right side my active windows within this tab.  If I want to reopen this space, all I have to do is click on the arrow within the box located in the green tool bar (top and centre).  

Student Use

One way to introduce students to Spaces is to show them that they can store their research pages on one "Space".  That way, when they are researching over an extended period of time, they can keep their webpages located in one easy to find space.  

Below is an example I shared with an intermediate co-worker.  We quickly Googled some Early Explorer research pages, and then saved the tab.  Now a student never has to worry about forgetting where he/she got the research, or wading through the murky depths of their bookmarks.  It can all be saved in one space.

Part 2: Google Sheets in Math

Just some other ideas that I have brainstormed, either with myself, or with peers.

Using the Sheets Grid paper to help with patterning:

I also did a quick example of how to use the "grid" paper to show some base 10 (making numbers) work for grades 3-4.  Sorry the image is a little fuzzy on this video.  Screencastify didn't capture it perfectly.  

More to come.

Google Sheets to draw....and get some math done

Once again, @AliceKeeler has dropped a gem onto my Twitter feed for me.

Her blog post this weekend was focused on using Google Sheets to create pixelated art.

This works out great because we just looked at a Minecraft image last week to discuss what fractions of the images, or characters were a certain colour.  I quickly created a very quick square-headed image, kind of resembling "Steve" and showed it to my class.

They had a quick and brief warm up about what fractions of colours they saw.  They extended it by saying this time, they could actually check their results because they could count the squares and figure out the fraction.  Last week, that couldn't be done with the image we looked at.  Awesome!!! Success.... Feelin' Good as a teacher!!!

So, then my mind got going.  What else can I do using this "grid" paper.

Well, let's look at area and perimeter.  I created a quick sample.  As usual, my mind went to how Assistive Tech users can use this.  I quickly created an area and perimeter task.  I included the equations at the bottom in merged cells, but it can easily be done in Snagit too.

Here is a link to a blank grid