EdTech Shorts

As educators we often encounter those times when multiple students across the classroom have their hand up waiting for assistance. It is extremely hard at times to keep track of whose hand went up first or even what order they all went up over all. ClassroomQ is a product that helps to eliminate this problem from your classroom.

Flipgrid has published a list of Do’s and Don’ts for getting started using Flipgrid in your classroom.

Do’s

* Do read Flipgrid’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

* Do follow your school policies around using the application and sharing with other schools

* Do clean up the student content when you no longer need it or if you leave your school mid-year.

* Do be sure to collect consent forms from all students before onboarding them on the platform, completed by parents/guardians.

* Do comply with any student requests to take down Flipgrid content.

* Do let students know that the tool is for educational purposes only.

Don’ts

* Don’t share student information outside the classroom or the school. 

* Don’t use Flipgrid to request students to buy things (for example, don’t encourage them to use Amazon to buy a book or download a paid app).

If you are looking to enhance your classroom experience for your students through social media, here are some quick dos and don’ts in that practice:

Dos

* Do use separate personal and professional social media accounts. Putting a boundary between school and personal life is good for your career and less stress on you.

* Do make sure you have strict privacy settings and review those settings frequently. Especially if you use one social media account per site.

Don’ts

* Don’t say anything on your social media profile that you wouldn’t say in class.

* Don’t get too chatty with students on your professional profile. This may confuse students into thinking you’re available 24/7 for this, that and the other. Be available, but keep it professional.

* Don’t share too much. Personal pictures from your weekend have no business being on your professional profile.

Social Media Guidelines for Teachers from Concordia University – Portland

If you are looking for a simple, easy to use, free place to design, publish, and host a website then you need to check out IM Creator.

IM Creator makes is really simple to design a website from one of their many free templates that are responsive and intuitive. They provide free, premium, and commercial accounts all with free hosting, unlimited bandwidth, access to their full library of templates and 100% ad free.

Big shoutout to Chris Nesi and the House of #EdTech for sharing IM Creator on episode #131 of his show.

If you are looking for a simple, easy to use, free place to design, publish, and host a website then you need to check out IM Creator.

IM Creator makes is really simple to design a website from one of their many free templates that are responsive and intuitive. They provide free, premium, and commercial accounts all with free hosting, unlimited bandwidth, access to their full library of templates and 100% ad free.

Big shoutout to Chris Nesi and the House of #EdTech for sharing IM Creator on episode #131 of his show.

If you use Microsoft’s OneNote Class Notebook with your students and have encountered issues with the section permissions there is a simple fix for that. Mike Tholfsen (@mtholfsen) recently shared a link (see his Tweet here) that will allow you to quickly, and easily fix those permissions with the click of a button.

Simply head out to https://onenote.com/classnotebook/notebook-fix. Once you’re there and logged in with your Office 365 credentials, the site will load a list of Class Notebooks you have created or are the co-owner on. Simply press the purple “Fix Permissions” button and Microsoft will take care of the rest.

Microsoft has created a new feature in OneDrive as a part of Windows 10. Auto-Save allows you to automatically redirect your documents, pictures, and desktop folders of your user profile to the cloud in OneDrive.

It is easy to setup. Simply right-click on your OneDrive sync icon in the taskbar and choose settings. You’re looking for a tab called “Auto-Save.” Click on it and setup your file redirections and your important items will be moved and backed up safely in the cloud.

In the classroom it is often difficult to ensure that ALL of your students are engaged and taking part in the class discussion. Our goal should be for all students to take part in the class discussion at some point during the class period. The larger issue is how to do that. Equity Maps is an iPad app that can help every teacher to do just that.

It is very easy to get started. You simply create a seating chart in the app and tap on each student as they take part in the class discussion or activity. Equity Maps keeps track of the number of times and for how long each student takes part in class for that period of time. At the end of the period you can view a report that breaks all this information down for you in several ways. Not only can you see how many times and for how long each student took part, you can also break it down by gender to make sure that you are not showing any gender bias in the class.

There are several other features that can break the information collected down even further to help guide your classroom management and planning. For example, you can track periods of complete silence, pair-share times, small group interactions, and something the developer calls “chaos” to keep track of periods when the class discussion or activity devolved and went off track with your plans. Equity Maps also included a voice recorder so that you can record the entire period of time and listen to it later when viewing the map and information collected.

Equity Maps is available in the iOS App Store for $2.99 allowing you to map up to 20 participants at once. There is a premium version for an additional $6.99 In-App Purchase allowing you to map up to 40 participants at once as well as the Checknotes feature for tracking characteristics of what group members share.

Microsoft’s recent update to version 1.7 of the Minecraft: Education Edition (M:EE) software has made it even easier for educators to incorporate the coding aspects into their Minecraft curriculum. Now that Code Builder is built-in to the M:EE software, students no longer need to run a separate program to learn and use Code Builder. They simply press the “C” key on their keyboard and the Code Builder interface will load on their screen. They have a few choices of curriculum available that will help them to learn to code in M:EE and explore their creativity in the product.

If you are a West Virginia educator interested in learning the basics of M:EE and ways you might be able to implement it into your classroom, there are several regional training, or Boot Camp, sessions taking place across the state. For more information or to register, visit http://svhs.wayn.k12.wv.us/bootcamp.

If you’re interested in M:EE but are not sure where to start, visit https://RandallBlack.com/Minecraft for information and resources to help you get started. Also there you can listen to a previous episode of EdTech Shorts about M:EE.

It’s the time of the year for a short break, but I also have a few announcements in regard to both the Randall Black Show and EdTech Shorts.