10 Tips For Using Google Classroom

Google Classroom is a newer product of Google that recently came out this Summer.  Basically, it is a method to seamlessly integrate your Google Apps into one communication-sharing location.  In Google Classroom you can set up your classes with your students, post notifications, share documents, video, and more.

Here is a handy infographic with some helpful ideas on how you can implement Classroom into your class.



Find more education infographics on e-Learning Infographics

Gmail Attachments

Because Google Apps are so seemlessly integrated with each other, you can easily move your email attachment to your Google Drive directly from your Gmail with the greatest of ease.  Here's how.

Activity Workshop Ideas

Middle School Teachers:

In my presentation at the Middle School faculty meeting last night, I believe I failed to mention that I would love to help you develop some creative ideas for your Learning Workshops using iPads or some form of technology.

Last year I worked with Tracy Fox with developing a lesson where the kids created words that described something using a collage of pictures taken of random, every-day objects that looked like a letter when taken and cropped in a certain manor.

We also taught the students how to make stop-motion movies.  Students were able to demonstrate their knowledge of cause-and-effect systems by animating inanimate objects in a series of cause and effect actions.

Here's an example of one I put together as a demo to help the students understand the concept and expectation.

A Feature From My Google+ Profile

Google+ Feature Follow

Apple's Reminders Desktop and iOS Apps

If you haven't discovered Apple's Reminders desktop and iPad app, you may find this a very useful tool.  Simple, yet effective the Reminders app allows you to create reminders and lists for anything you want to be notified or "reminded" later on.  Sometimes just making a checklist of todos or goals for a projects is all you need.  Reminders is a simple way for you to manage several tasks or todos.

The great thing with having both Reminders on our MacBook Air and our iPad Mini is that you can sync your reminders and be notified on both devices.  If you have an IEP scheduled and you want to be notified later, you can set it in Reminders.  Perhaps you have a list of goals for a project or activity and you want to be able to prioritize and organize your workflow.  Reminders is a great way to accomplish that.

The video below demonstrates how Reminders is used on iOS (iPad) and on your MacBook Air.

iOS 8 & iCloud Drive - Important Information for Primary Solution Teachers

Today, from MLTI, I received this important email notification that would be good for all in our district, who have the iPad mini and MacBook Air, to review before Apple's updates this Wed, Sept 17th:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dickson, Juanita <juanita.dickson@maine.gov>Date: Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 10:07 AM
Subject: [MLTI_iPad] iOS 8 & iCloud Drive - Important Information for Primary Solution Teachers
To: "mlti_ipad@lists.maine.gov" <mlti_ipad@lists.maine.gov>

Dear Apple Primary Teachers, 

iOS 8 will be available on September 17th. The Apple MLTI Project team will start supporting iOS 8 on that date. As such, we highly encourage all users to update to iOS 8 when it becomes available. If you want to learn more about iOS 8 you can learn more at the overview page (http://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/).

After upgrading to iOS 8 the setup assistant will ask you if you would like to upgrade to iCloud Drive. iCloud Drive is a new feature of iOS 8 that can replace "Documents and Data." iCloud Drive will allow you to safely store all your presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs, images, and any other kind of document in iCloud and access them from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC. 

During the iOS 8 upgrade, it is highly recommended that Primary Solution Teachers DO NOT enable iCloud Drive prior to the release of OS X Yosemite. 

Teachers that have received an iPad mini and MacBook Air as part of MLTI should be aware that if they enable iCloud Drive when updating their iPad mini to iOS 8, they WILL NOT be able to access the updated versions of documents stored in iCloud Drive on their MacBook Air until they upgrade to OS X Yosemite. OS X Yosemite will be released this fall. 

Once OS X Yosemite is supported by MLTI, users are encouraged to upgrade their MacBook Air devices to OS X Yosemite and then upgrade to iCloud Drive on all of their devices upgraded to OS X Yosemite and iOS 8. 

If a teacher does turn on iCloud Drive prior to the release of OS X Yosemite, it is important to note that no data will be lost. The files can be downloaded, edited and uploaded on a device that has not been updated to OS X Yosemite by going to https://www.icloud.com. 

If you have questions on this or other MLTI-related issues, please call the MLTI Help Desk at 1-800-919-2775 and use the pin# 4MLTI. 

Thank you,
The Apple MLTI Project Team
_______________________________________________
MLTI_iPad mailing list
MLTI_iPad@lists.maine.govhttps://mailman.informe.org/mailman/listinfo/mlti_ipad

What Is Blended Learning?

What is Blended Learning? from The Learning Accelerator on Vimeo.

#blendedlearning Tweets

Introduction to Technology Integration

This is an older video from Edutopia, however nicely describes what Technology Integration in the classroom is.  One of my favorite pieces from this is from +Adam Bellow :

"If you can do this lesson without technology, that's great.  But, if you can do it better with technology, then that's why you use it"

Sharing in Google Drive

I have been hearing from some in our district how they may not fully understand the "Sharing" process in Google Drive, and/or how to access shared documents received from others.  This is a handy document that should help explain this process.

The Guide to Google Drive Sharing

Moodle: Student Self Enrollment

In the past, as teachers of a Moodle course in our district, we were able to instruct our students to simple enroll themselves to our Moodle course.  In our recent upgrade to Moodle, you now have to manually adjust your settings to allow for student self enrollment.  It is a simple process, and here is how you can adjust this:

This Week's Itinerary

For this week, due to iPad deployment at the Middle School, I will be at the Middle School for most of this week.  However, I will be at the High School sometime in the late morning through the rest of that day.  Thank you for your understanding of this.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerning and I will get back to you as soon as possible.