Empower: Navigating Through

Save this PDF to your Google Drive for future reference.

Infographic: MLA Format

Empower: Target Browser

Here's a PDF illustrating the Target Browser from our Empower PBE online software.  The Target Browser is the one section of Empower, I believe, that you will be using more than any other piece on Empower in our (SAD1) first year of practicing it.  This is where you can find your curriculum - all of the standards and learning targets associated with your content area.  This tutorial should be very helpful when trying to familiarize yourself with it.

BTW, this document you see above is from my Google Drive.  You can, also, embed your Google Drive documents on to your Moodle course, Google Site, or blog easily like you see above.  Ask me, I'll show you.

SAMR Model

Ok, here we go.

Here are a couple of vids (and some from Ruben himself, the creator of the SAMR model) regarding the SAMR model.

Did he say "Maine"!

Element 13: Helping Students Reflect on Their Learning

Element 12: Helping Students Record and Represent Knowledge

Element 12 from Marzano's Teaching Framework talks about the use of digital academic notebooks.  There are many products out there that work well in developing a digital academic notebook for taking notes, outlines and reflections.  One product I want to feature is Evernote.  I am an avid Evernote user and have used Evernote since Feb of 2012.

At its simplest form, Evernote is a digital notebook allowing you to collect multiple forms of digital content, from text to photos, to web links, to document files, to audio recordings, and more.  It is a powerful indexer of information.

With the ability to categorize your content into separate notebooks and label each note with linkable tags, you can thoroughly organize your digital stuff.

This is a great tool for students to use when creating their own digital academic notebooks.  Evernote also is integrated in the iPad operating system.  Users can save content from their Safari web browser straight to their desired Evernote notebook.

Because Evernote is a cloud-based product, users will be able to access their content from almost any device or computer.  Evernote is very multi-platform.  As a result of this feature, users (students) will have to create their own account using an email account as verification, so make sure you check with your Administrators first before allowing students in your class to start creating accounts.

To learn more of the potential and the power of Evernote, YouTube is literally LOADED full of thousands of very helpful tutorials.  Goes to show it is favored by many, many people.

Links:
Online Evernote account
Evernote app on iTunes

Google Drive Folder Sharing

Had to feature this tweet.  Many in SAD1 will benefit from this!

New Google Drive: 4 Easy Steps for Sharing a Folder http://t.co/EfTZRzljja pic.twitter.com/B6UgEliL5F

— Alice Keeler (@alicekeeler) May 14, 2015

Misconceptions of the SAMR Model

If you recall in my previous post in March I talked about how tech should be used to assist and transform learning, and I referenced the SAMR model from Ruben Puetedura.  I'll talk more about this model in future posts.  I am realizing more now that I do not talk about this model enough.

There can be however some misconceptions of what the model is and how to actually apply it.  I found this great vid on some of these misconceptions.

Term Weighting in PowerTeacher

Attention PIMS teachers:  for this year, we should be weighting our school year by Term Weights as indicated below.

My New Favorite Chrome Extension

If you have not taken advantage of Chrome's extensions, you're missing out.  Just like Safari's extensions or add-ons in Firefox, these tools are embedded in your browser and allow you to do functions within your browser or webpage.  I found a new extension for my Chrome web browser.  It's my new favorite.  It is called OneTab.

There are many times where I will have multiple tabs open while doing research or looking up content online.  Having multiple tabs open, not only is counter-productive to staying focused, but it can also slow down your browser's performance and speed depending on what the webpage is; especially in Chrome.  OneTab will collect all of your open tabs in one fell swoop and list them on one tab.  The list is then saved and will allow you to do more with the saved list.  I can save my list as a webpage for sharing, or saving to Evernote.  I can name that particular list, so that if I open new tabs for new searches, I am able to chuck those list into particular categories.

This extension will make my work a heck of a lot easier to sort and manage.

Be sure to check out Chrome's App Store and find a couple of your future favorites.

Marzano's Element 4: Establishing and Maintaining Classroom Procedures

Having your student involved with the establishment of classroom rules and procedures not only empowers your students to make good choices, but encourages them to invest in their own behavior.  One great way to maximize classroom involvement with all your students when creating rules and procedures with them is the use of online collaborative services.

Padlet is a FREE product that has been out for a rather long time (in the digital world even 5 years is a very long time).  It is still a very effective tool for classroom collaboration and involvement.   Padlet allows you to create an online classroom discussion on one closed discussion platform.  Visually Padlet is similar to a bulletin board where users can post their content and ideas for all of those involved on the board to see and comment to.  And, Padlet works on any device.

Here is a video walk-through of how to use Padlet.

Search For a Student on Empower

Let's say you just want to find a student and view their progress alone.  There are two ways to go about this.

You can search the Student Roster in the class group:

Or you can look through the Progress Reports in the Empower menu, shown below; locate Student Snapshot:

Cause and Reaction

I found this GIF animation on Google+ this morning.  This is a great idea for the Science class working with Cause and Reaction.  Your students, using their electronic devices, can easily create stop-motion videos like this below describing cause and reaction.  There are many FREE apps out there that help users achieve this.  Check out my Google Site page regarding this procedure. There are a few suggestions for FREE apps as well.

Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts

Not sure if you caught this on Google+ yesterday, but I thought I'd share this tech tip: