Featured 5-21-2014: ChalkUp

 

ChalkUp is a student engagement platform designed to foster real-time school-work collaboration, learning, and studying, ChalkUp enables students to ask questions, discuss and share interesting educational content, and work with each other.

 

Dashboard is a real-time feed where you can comment on discussions, submit assignments, and even view files. Chalkup keeps all assignments, quizzes, and tests in one place.

 

Assignments can be delivered to students quickly and in real-time. Drag-and-drop a document from your computer or use one that you have stored on Google Drive or Google Apps for Education. Create folders, rename files to be organized.

 

Students can turn in assignments as easily as dragging-and-dropping, uploading as many files as necessary. Annotate and grade uploaded file submissions right inside ChalkUp. Personalize feedback with a quick note.

 

 

Messaging lets the people in your class chat in real-time and share files with each other. Teachers can send messages to students to clarify, remind, and keep them engaged. Chalkup uses 256-bit AES encryption to make sure your messages are safe.

 

The free version of ChalkUp provides 1 GB of storage per class with a file size limit of 25 MB, and all the core features including integrated flashcards.

 

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Featured 5-19-2014: Google Classroom

 

Classroom is a new, free tool coming to Google Apps for Education that helps teachers easily and quickly create and organize assignments, provide feedback, and communicate with their classes.

 

By integrating Google Docs, Drive, and Gmail, Classroom can help teachers manage assignments quickly and easily, and communicate with their students more efficiently and effectively. Classroom lets teachers make announcements and pose questions online.

 

Students using Classroom are able to better organize their work, complete and submit assignments, and interact directly with their teachers and peers. Drive folders are automatically created for each assignment and for each student. Students can readily see what assignments are due on an assignments page.

 

 Watch Previewing a new Classroom by Google

 

Classroom contains no ads, does not use your content or student data for advertising purposes, and is free for schools.

 

 

A limited number of educators are being invited to try Classroom. Teachers can apply for a preview. By September, Classroom will be available to any school using Google Apps for Education.

 

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Featured 5-1-2014: Pear Deck

Pear Deck makes it easy to plan and build interactive lessons that promote active learning in the classroom. Real-time data provides teachers the feedback needed to make on-the-fly adaptations.

 

Create a new Pear Deck from Google Drive then use the editor to quickly create any of four kinds of slides: static, multiple choice, Draggable™, or free response. You can also import slides from most presentation software, such as Powerpoint or Keynote, as a PDF.

 

 

Once your Pear Deck is built, launch a unique presentation session directly from the editor to your students using your Google Apps for Education domain. Pear Deck’s Google Chrome extension lets you launch the presentation on their devices with no cooperation required.

 

 

Students follow along on their devices and respond to the unique question types when prompted. As the teacher, your device can isolate individual or groups of answers to put on the interactive whiteboard for further discussion or review.

 

 See how to present a Pear Deck

 

Pear Deck is currently in limited beta. They are looking for schools that:

• Use Google Apps for Education
• Use or are evaluating Chromebooks
• Are driven to fostering an environment of active learning
• Are driven to increase and improve formative assessments and data-driven instruction

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Featured: 1-22-2014 StrataLogica

StrataLogica brings maps, globes, atlases, and charts to life in an environment where teachers and students can "actively engage with our multi-layered world and easily share content and collaborate in ways never before imagined."

 

Recently redesigned with one-of-a-kind content creation and collaborative features, web-based, and powered by Google Earth, StrataLogica is designed for use on computers, projectors, and interactive whiteboards. It has been used by thousands and has been well-reviewed by both educators and students. 

 

StrataLogica for the iPad is a free app where students can learning about our world with a tap or pinch of their fingers. Version 2.0 brings powerful features for creating content, collaborating, and sharing from the desktop to the iPad.

 

StrataLogica for the iPad features: 

• Tools (marker, symbols, text labels and pushpins) to add your own content onto geography, history, and earth science layers.
• Save and share custom views or presentations with school or district students or colleagues.
• Share content with anyone in the world via Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail.
• Teachers can initiate dynamic collaborative projects with students.
• Access e-book atlases and related student activities.

StrataLogica delivers a unique educational experience. Even without a school account, you can experience a sampling of StrataLogica's interactive layers for free.

 

 See a video overview of StrataLogica for iPad

 

The web version of StrataLogica is supported on all major browsers and operating systems. To view maps in 3D you need the Google Earth Plugin. The StrataLogica app is free and is compatible with iPads using iOS 6.0 or later.

 

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Featured: 12-2-2013 Google Play for Education

Discover, purchase, and share educational apps, books, and videos easily with Google Play for Education, a new online destination just for schools.

Browse content by grade, subject, keyword, or standard (including Common Core). Google Play for Education includes student tools in the categories study & reference, STEM tools, creation, and productivity & organization.

 

Teachers can find tools that support the cycle of planning, delivery, and assessment of instruction in the classroom, as well as tools that support classroom management, including behavior management, and communication with and between teachers, students, and parents.

 

A series of videos provide a closer look at how to use Google Play for Education.

 

 

Google Play for Education offers both free and paid content. Purchases can be made using purchase orders with no credit card required. Apps can be distributed quickly via the cloud.

 

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Featured: 8-13-2013 Flowboard

Flowboard is a free iPad app that lets you create side-scrolling presentations with text, images, video, and links.

 

 

 

Create each screen of a Flowboard using simple touch gestures. Add buttons, videos, and galleries for interactivity. Present your Flowboard and let others explore, using the interactive features, on your iPad, online, or offline.

 

Create Flowboards with content on your iPad or from the cloud. Add photos and videos from Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive; pictures from Facebook or Instagram; and use Google Image Search, as well.

 

Flowboard automatically saves your presentations locally as you make changes, and you can save drafts to the cloud, so your presentation is always safe.

 

 

Present straight from your iPad, connect to a projector, or mirror using AirPlay. You can share your Flowboard to other iPad users and the web by a URL that can be posted anywhere.

 

 Watch a Flowboarddemo from TechCrunch

 

Flowboard is free to download and use (Requires iOS 6.0 or later). Premium increases your monthly upload quota to 1GB, with bigger file upload sizes, and the ability to upload PDF files. Currently, a subscription for Flowboard Premium is $5(USD) per month. 

 

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Featured: 8-7-2013 Understanding YouTube & Digital Citizenship

Understanding YouTube & Digital Citizenship is an interactive curriculum created to help teachers develop useful skills and an understanding of digital citizenship in their students.

Google devised Understanding YouTube & Digital Citizenship to support teachers of secondary students (ages 13-17). Their hope is that both students and educators will "gain useful skills and a holistic understanding about responsible digital citizenship, not only on YouTube, but in all online activity."

The Understanding YouTube & Digital Citizenship curriculum helps educate students on topics such as:

• YouTube’s policies.
• Reporting content on YouTube.
• Protecting privacy online.
• Being responsible YouTube community members.
• Being responsible digital citizens.

 Watch a video about the YouTube Digital Citizenship Curriculum

Understanding YouTube & Digital Citizenship includes ten English language lessons each designed to fit within 50 minute classes. Materials are also available in a number of other languages including Spanish, French, and Russian.

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Things I Like: Google Books Downloader

Earlier today, I discovered a handy little app, Google Book Downloader.

Google Books Downloader is a very barebones tool. Enter the URL or ID of a Google Book and it will create and download a PDF of that book, including books that have full or limited previews. Google Book Downloader can only download the portion you can read on Google Books.

Download a book to Dropbox, Skydrive, Google Drive, or another cloud storage service and your book will be available on any device capable of viewing a PDF.

You can download Google Books Downloaderfree from CNET's Download.com.

Note: Google Book Downloader is not connected in any way with with Google.

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Save Google Reader

Hi!

I just signed the petition "Google: Keep Google Reader Running" on Change.org.

It's important. Will you sign it too? Here's the link:

http://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader-running

Thanks!

Featured: 3/14/2013 March Madness Math [Topical]

The March Madness website provides classroom lessons, resources, and tools that have been developed around the NCAA men's basketball tournament.



The March Madness website offers many ways to use the NCAA basketball tournament to inspire learning in your classroom.

Some of the March Madness activities:

• In Figure the Winner students practice calculating percentage, average, mean, median, and mode.
• Exploring Binary uses the NCAA brackets to explore binary trees in sports and math.
• A March Madness webquest.
• Who’s Number 1? is an activity in which students investigate the mathematics of ranking.
• Check out the cities and schools that are part of the tournament using Google Earth.

March Madness Reading engages students in drawing conclusions from large amounts of information, using evidence to support opinions, and reading tables, graphs and charts.

The March Madness website also provides links to a number of related resources as well as several downloadable PDF files.

Note: As far as I can see, this site has no official connection with the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

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Extra: 2/3/1013 Create Self Grading Assessments With Google Forms

Mike Reading is a Google Apps for Education Certified Trainer & Google Certified Teacher. He has written and produced a number of of resources that help teachers use Google to increase student motivation and engagement.

This quick 7 minute demonstration shows how you can use Google Forms to create a self grading assessment.

Teachers can use this technique to differentiate their learning programs, set homework tasks, conduct spelling tests, quick quizzes etc.

COD - 10/22/2012 - TalkTyper [Speech Recognition]

TalkTyper is a web app that provides free speech recognition. It makes voice dictation available to anyone.

 

 

Anyone with a computer can use TalkTyper which first became possible when Google introduced speech input in version 11 of its Chrome browser. Before that, most people had to use the keyboard to enter information into a field in the browser. Speech input allows you to talk rather than type.

 

Speech input allows anyone to create text on a computer, even if they cannot type because of physical disabilities or other problems such as dyslexia or dysgraphia. TalkTyper enables anyone who can click on a button and speak to write on a computer.

 

Watch a video demo of TalkTyper

 

To use TalkTyper, click the microphone icon and begin speaking. When you're finished, click the copy button, and then paste it into your document, email, whatever.

 

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CK-12 Books are Now Available in Google Play

CK-12 foundation is an organization working to establish the development and distribution of quality educational content that can be a core text as well as to provide a flexible context for learning.

CK-12 books are now available in Google Play. Accessing books through Google Play allows you to view the books on several different devices as well as in web browsers. CK-12 foundation now has over 25 free books available on Google Play.  Click here to view all available CK-12 titles, or go to play.google.com and search for "CK-12".

Go to earlier posts about CK-12

Google Play is a new way to discover, buy, and enjoy books, online and offline. You can read books on Google Play on your computer, your smartphone, or your electronic reading device. Click here to learn more about how books work on Google Play. 

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Life in the Cloud Gets Even Better

Lots of news in the world of cloud storage today!

Microsoft released a new SkyDrive app for both Mac and PC, as well as an update for their previously released mobile apps. The Windows and Mac versions are both available for free. The desk/laptop version of the app appears to work very similarly to the desk/laptop version of Dropbox. You can add files to the SkyDrive folder and they will be uploaded the cloud.

SkyDrive's free storage limit is changing to 7GB, but if you are an existing SkyDrive user you can keep the 25GB you currently have, if you act now.

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Google today launched Google Drive, a cloud service that lets you create, share and store your documents online. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC to upload videos, photographs, Google docs and more to Google's cloud, and you can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. A Drive app for iOS devices is in the works.

 

Google Drive includes 5 GB of free storage, and upgrade to 25 GB for less than $2.50 a month. The service will launch with support for Windows and Mac desk/laptops as well as Android devices. An iOS client is in the works.

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Less dramatic, but still significant, you can now send a link to any of the files or folders in your Dropbox. Once you’ve saved a file to Dropbox, just make a link to send to anyone you want to share with and they can simply view (but not edit)  most file types online — no download required. But just in case they want to save that file for later, they can choose to either download it or save it straight to their Dropbox.

 

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COD - 4/4/2012 - Google Docs OCR [Tools]

Use the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities of Google Docs to convert PDFs and scanned images of pages to editable text for free.

Google Docs supports importing and converting scanned text documents. Upload your scanned images (JPEG, GIF, PNG) or PDFs, check the option to “Convert text from PDF and image files to Google documents”, and Google Docs will extract text and formatting from the scans that you can edit.

Google Docs OCR works best with high-resolution images, and not all formatting may be preserved. To help ensure the accuracy of the OCR translation, the original PDF/image is included in the new document, followed by the editable transcript of its contents. So, each page of the original document converts as two pages - one original image, and one of the rendered editable text.

Watch a video demo of Google Docs OCR

Go to an earlier post about converting PDFs to editable text

Google Docs OCR supports a number of languages including English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish.

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Good to Know - Information About Managing Your Online Life

Good to Know is a site from Google with useful information about managing your online life.

There are four main areas of information on Good to Know:

• Stay safe online ... tips and advice for staying more secure on the web
• Your data on the web … how it makes websites more useful
• Your data on Google … how it makes Google services more useful
• Manage your data … what you share with Google and other websites

Learn about phishing, malware, mobile security, cookies, IP addresses, and more. You can also find out about Google's five privacy principles that describe their approach to user privacy and information across all of their products. Link to Google's collection of privacy tools.

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Graphing in Google

Graphing functionality has just been introduced to Google. See the graphs of mathematical functions right on the search result page. Type a function in the search box and you’ll see an interactive graph at the top of the search results page.

Features:

• Zoom in and out and pan across the plane to explore the function in more detail.
• Draw multiple functions by separating them with commas.
• Extensive range of single variable functions including trigonometric, exponential, logarithmic and their compositions.

This functionality is available in most modern browsers. I've tried it successfully in both Safari and Chrome.