Talk about streamlining a process!
Google Forms is a frequently used tool in my GAFE toolbox. Students on my campus access a Google Form on the library website to vote in campus elections, suggest a name for our library fish, sign up for MakerSpace activities, or suggest a book for our collection. Teachers access a Google Form on the library website to reserve computer labs or library time. Last week I got a chance to tryout the Form Notification add-on, and I'm a fan! My district hosted a technology training day. At the end of the day, participants completed an evaluation in a Google Form. When they clicked "submit," the Form Notification add-on sent them an email with the link to their certificate for the training. I created the certificate in Google Sheets and forced those who accessed it to make a copy of the certificate for their own records. (Check out Kasey Bell's instructions for forcing a copy in Google Docs.)
Talk about streamlining a process! Ok. I am hours away from my first-ever TwitterChat, and I'm inordinately excited. Participating in a chat on Twitter has been on my bucket list for quite a while, and I'm finally getting to venture out and be a part. Thanks, #2jennsbookclub for the gentle nudge to leave my Twitter comfort zone.
My relationship with Twitter has evolved over the last six years. My first foray into tweeting involved posting reminders for my students/parents about upcoming deadlines and events. But after a beta year, I realized that my students/parents weren't following me in the numbers that warranted the extra work. My Twitter hiatus began. The next level of my Twitter relationship involved my desire for ongoing professional development and exposure to tools that teachers and students on my campus could use for learning. I followed Richard Byrne of FreeTech4Teachers and Tony Vincent of LearningInHand and Larry Ferlazzo. What an eye opener. Just reading their Tweets on Sunday night gave me tons of new tools to share on my campus. Seeing how much information was shared on Twitter inspired me to use the social media platform for a crash course in librarianship when I transitioned from the classroom to the library and started graduate school. Shannon Miller, Nancy Jo Lambert, and Barrow Media Center gave me my first insights into what a library as learning center looked like. Lately, I've been looking at Twitter in a new way. I'm the kind of teacher who needs to be exposed to awesome teaching and new ideas to fuel my own momentum. I love the excellent teaching and constant flow of new ideas that Twitter provides me because that means that whenever I need a little boost, I can log on and see awesomeness going on all over the world. Talk about inspiration. My idea tank is never empty! Today I'm heading off to TwitterChat land for the first time, and I'm already thinking about ways to incorporate Twitter into on-going PD on my own campus. Thanks TechNinjaTodd for that little kernel of inspiration. Why Twitter? Twitter has expanded my professional learning community and my professional toolbox in ways I never expected from a social media network. If you're ready to join the conversation, set up an account and follow a few experts in your field. See how your own use of Twitter evolves over time. I have been looking for a tool to use to make infographics that fits the way I work, and Piktochart fits the bill! It's a versatile, easy-to-use tool that offers templates for infographics, reports, banners, and presentations. The free version allows a subscriber to download a creation as an image. A paid subscription allows the subscriber to download a creation as a .pdf. The beauty is that if you create a long infographic and download as a .pdf, you have the option of saving it in a printable format or to save it in sections. Piktochart displays differently on a tablet and on a computer. The tablet display of my infographic was beautiful and loaded quickly. The computer display was, well, AMAZING! By clicking on presentation mode, each section of the infographic displayed as a single slide, making it my new go-to tool for public presentations. Edu accounts are available at a discounted price. Check out my first Piktochart. It was a great tool for my library annual report.
Canva is a versatile site that enables me to create visually pleasing graphics easily. One of its best features is that I can download my creations as pictures or .pdf files to use in other applications or on my website. While Canva charges $1 for the use of some graphics, I haven't had any trouble creating completely free posters, flyers, etc. While I mainly use Canva on my laptop, I like the flexibility of using the Canva app on my iPad if I need to create something on the fly.
So, I have to laugh sometimes at my love for all things geeky. I was so excited last week when my Made With Code bracelet came in the mail: my first "something" printed on a 3D printer. But I was even MORE excited today when one of my eighth grade students whizzed into the library after school and said, "I just made one of those bracelets." Mission accomplished! A spark of interest in coding ignited. Add that comment to the question a sixth grader asked me at lunch, and it's been a GREAT day! "What's coding?" Oh, honey, let me show you...and off she went exploring Scratch.
Confession: I don't know a single thing about coding. I have a hard time communicating with my son, the techno-geek who works in IT, because I don't understand half his vocabulary. When he starts talking V.4 vs. V.6 in regard to modems, my eyes just glaze over; however, when I see him hovered over his bank of computers and see the joy in his eyes as he programs his latest Raspberry Pi acquisition to do something incredible, I smile inside and out. Seeing my students working in Crunchzilla to change the size, shape, and location of a rectangle on a screen through code makes me smile, too. So after I steer a student to Scratch and click on Create, I can just sit back and watch the wonder begin. And the most awesome part is that if the student hits a snag, there's probably a student somewhere in the room who can come up with a solution. And if there's not, among us, we'll figure it out. Imagine my delight when I walked into the MakerSpace at the ESC 20 Library Resource Roundup last Friday. Tune the music, maestro. It was a red carpet moment! Two 3D printers connected to software similar to Google SketchUp that we have on our library computers; Lego robots; MaKey MaKey circuits; circuit books; Raspberry Pi boards; and even a box of Legos to create scenes to orchestrate stop motion stories using the Lego Movie Maker app. I was like a kid in the candy store. The poor facilitator got question after question after question. I've been reading about these tools for the last two years and have been reluctant to venture too far into that realm because (back to the confession) I don't know how to use half that stuff. But (epiphany) I finally realized, I don't have to know. I need to provide the opportunity to light the spark in some student out there who is going to be like my middle son and pursue the "how" in his/ her own way. I have a distinct feeling that the library is going to be a crazy, messy place to learn over the next few months as our geeky toys start to arrive, but I'm excited to see which kids' lights shine as they explore something new. At the beginning of school every year, I always get a few questions about what Web 2.0 tools I'm using to make life's chaos a little simpler. So here goes...
1. Google Calendar: People who've seen my online calendar laugh. I love that I can have 20 separate calendars linked, color-coded, and selectively shared/embedded without much effort at all. As much as I love and miss the creativity involved in keeping my beloved, colorful and doodled paper planner I love that my calendar is now always accessible. 2. Feedly: gather all your news feeds in one place. Since I started gathering RSS feeds into one place nearly five years ago, my daily dose of professional development has skyrocketed. I can honestly say that I learn more from my daily news feed than the combination of a slew of inservices I've attended over the years. I look at my RSS feed as small doses of professional development that I can apply at the point of need. Love it! 3. Newsify: While I use Feedly on my computer, I like to use Newsify on my mobile devices. It's linked to my Feedly account, but I can scroll through the news feeds more quickly than on the Feedly mobile app. I also like that I can easily share content with my colleagues or push content to my Evernote or Pinterest accounts. 4. Pinterest: While I originally started using Pinterest for my personal life, I've quickly adopted it for my professional life. There's a TON of professional content out there. Just search the site for something you teach, and you'll see what I mean. I like that I can use the Pin bookmarklet in my browser toolbar to pin content to my boards. No more hunting around for "where did I save that link?" 5.Evernote: I used Evernote a few years ago like I use Pinterest now. Then I drifted away from Evernote for awhile. Graduate school brought me back to Evernote. I love that I can set up notebooks, save/share to-do lists, etc. Since I can access Evernote on all my devices, the to-do lists and notes are always accessible. 6. Google Drive: I was a late-comer to Google Drive. Just didn't like the idea of Google having access to my business. That being said, I've come to rely on Drive for my professional life. No more emailing versions of files to colleagues. Just update the shared file in Drive, and all parties have immediate access to the revisions. I also like that I can share the link to a file, email the file as a Word/Excel/PPT, and add voice/text comments to files. The launch of Google Classroom next week and Drive's update to allow numerous add-ons like EasyBib and MindMeister to assist with workflow, will only make using Drive with colleagues and students easier . Rumor has it that Google is going to launch Google Classroom next week. That's perfect timing for integrating Drive and related apps into your curriculum for the new school year.
Teachers, check out Richard Byrne's post on using Kaizena to add voice comments to Google Docs and Presentations. Way awesome. I'm adding it to our For Google Symbaloo.
Looking for a quick and easy tool to create a web-based flyer? Try out Tackk. Your creations can be embedded, emailed, and shared on social media. See my sample below where I've been keeping track of my summer reading. |
Suzy Groff
Middle school librarian and district technology integration coordinator. I delight in sharing books and technology while creating and learning with my students and colleagues. Archives
August 2016
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