December 2, 2016

11/29/16 - Lead Learner: Nancy Minicozzi

Links to Workshop Resources: https://goo.gl/CdSqBs

LINK TO SHARED WORKSHOP ASSIGNMENTS FOLDER HERE

Nancy Minicozzi led our first cohort workshop focusing on Google Drive, Docs & Forms. I was already fairly comfortable with these tools, but it is always good to review and pick up on new tips and tricks. These programs are continually evolving and it is important to keep up with all the updates and added functionalities.

GOOGLE DRIVE

Over the last year, I have been relying on Google Drive to store all my files. I was hesitant to transition to cloud computing, but now, I won't go back to saving my files locally on my personal device. It is so convenient storing my files in Google Drive where I can access them at home, school, and on my mobile devices without transporting laptops from home to school. I love the search features that Google has to help find files in my Drive and I learned a new trick - shift-z to save a file in more than one folder!

I believe the most valuable tool of Google Drive is the ability to share files. This is a powerful tool when it comes to sharing files with colleagues for school activities and curriculum planning. It is also beneficial to share files with students to help with reviewing and editing, as well as students sharing with each other for peer review and collaboration. Sharing files in Google Drive has transformed the way I teach writing. I am able to help students edit and revise their work in live time instead of waiting for them to turn in a rough draft. Students don't have to worry about losing paper or leaving something at home or in their desk at school. The projects they need to work on are always accessible, can be shared with other students for collaboration or peer review, and with parents.

GOOGLE DOCS

I have used Google docs quite a bit and am comfortable with basic formatting, tables, and the commenting features. I find tables very helpful when creating docs to be used by the whole class. Setting up a table with numbers gives students a specific cell to add content to and prevents students from typing over each other. I have used this before when I wanted one document indicating each students' research topic or book selection for an upcoming book report. The part of Google Docs that I utilize least, but find extremely valuable, are the explore and citation tools. I plan to teach my student how to research from withing Google Docs to help enhance the content what they are writing. The add-on that was new to me was the word could generator. This is a fun to make a collection of words. I have made word clouds before using tagexdo.com but it takes a lot of time to compose word list. This could be a useful tool to help students find themes or main ideas of what they are reading or writing. It can also help them see if a particular word is being over used in their writing.

GOOGLE FORMS

After exploring Google Docs, we moved on to Google Forms. I was most excited about this segment because it has undergone so many changes and has many add-ons and functions that I was not familiar with. I have created simple forms and I am anxious to use them more in my class.

I created a practice form for the course assignment that includes several different question types. https://goo.gl/forms/88H9zgUCLrnxdtnh1

When creating a form, you can include a variety of different questions types: multiple choice, checkbox, short answer, paragraph, drop-down box, or a linear scale.

For each question or answer choice, you can import an image or video. Once data is collected, it is amazing what you can do! Responses can be viewed by individual submission or in a summary form complete with easy to read charts and graphs.

The QR codes are also saved as individual .png files in your Google Drive if you want to insert them into other file types (ie: drawing, doc, or slide show)

Another add-on that I learned about was "choice eliminator." I was able to use this in my classroom immediately. My students were selecting topics for an upcoming research and presentation project. I had 11 different choices and I wanted on more than three students working on one topic. I was able to create a form with a checklist and set the choice eliminator to 3. The students accessed the form and made their selections. Once 3 students picked a particular topic, the option was eliminated from the list for the future students.

GOOGLE DRAWING

The final tool presented was one of my favorites, Google Drawing. I love having the students create drawings to go along with their stories or field trip reflections. I created this practice drawing with imported photos, an image using a shape mask, image transparency, and word art during the workshop.

I created this screencast for my students to give them tips on how to use Google Drawing. We will be watching a movie, Our Friend Martin, when we get back to school in January and my students will be asked to write a reflection paragraph and create a drawing to go along with it.

I felt the whole workshop was very valuable. I'm glad that I already felt fairly comfortable with these Google tools. The amount of content covered would have been extremely overwhelming if I was new to GAFE.

I enjoyed the opportunity to explore the add-ons because that was new to me. I knew there were add-ons out there, but I haven't spent much time exploring them. I know I will use the QR Code generator and the choice eliminator a lot. The QR Code generator will save me a lot of time.

I will be sharing what I learned about commenting in Google Docs with my colleagues so that they can help their students with editing their writing. I am so grateful that I am no longer bringing home stacks of crumpled rough drafts to mark up with a red pen and return to the students a day or two later. Google Docs allows this process to happen in real time. I want my colleagues to experience that too!

I will be using Google forms more often to gather information from my students. I like the ability to turn a Google Form into a quiz and my students enjoy the immediate feedback that they get from their responses. At this point, I am focused on how I can use these tools myself to improve my teaching and streamline gathering information from students. I'm trying to think of opportunities for students to create forms themselves and explore how to evaluate data and draw conclusions from responses they receive.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the Google / YouTube workshops!