Web Link Wednesday: Shop around the Coach's Corner

       From the start of the blogging journey, I want to make it clear that I have by no means cornered the market on good ideas on teaching, technology or anything else for that matter.  Without a doubt, the large majority of I present here will have originated from someone else.  

     While I am "officially" Emerson's Instructional Technology Coach, there are six other ITCs in this district who have so much to offer the Emerson staff.  These are people who I regularly look to for great ideas and inspiration.  I encourage you to shop around their sites to see for yourself.

As a team, the ITCs designed the Coach's Corner to be one-stop shopping for District 64 staff.  You can access it from any of our sites, as well as the district staff portal.  Here are some of my personal highlights:

• Amanda Pelsor, Carpenter's ITC, is a Google Goddess. She also has some great "Step-by-Steps."
• Amanda Walsh at Lincoln is leading the way with Edmodo resources.
• If you are looking for Formative Assessment support, turn to Roosevelt's Caroline Schaab.
• Those of you who have used Wordle and want to take it further, Rachel Lebuz from Washington has a whole list of Word Cloud options.
• Carrie Bellen, Franklin's ITC, was the person who first introduced me to Triptico, a set of free classroom tools that are perfect for the Smartboards.
• Michael Johnson paved the way for this blog with his own Field ITC Blog.  

On the subject of blogs, check out the latest posts from the other ITC's blogs under "Blogs I Follow" on the right side on this website for even more ideas and inspiration.

No matter the source of inspiration, please let me know if there is something I can do to help you bring it into your classroom.

    

Tech Tool Tuesday: Emerson Google Docs Naming System

Student: "I know I turned it in."

Teacher: "I don't have it."

Student: "But I know I turned it in."

Teacher: "Did you write your name on it?"

Student: "Ahhh...."

We have all this conversation countless times with students in our paper classroom.  One of the things that teachers struggle with is finding papers coming in from 100+ kids, whether by hand or electronically.  It turns out the solution is all in the Name.

As I have worked with teachers using Google Docs with their students, we have come up with a simple naming system that helps you, as the teacher, find documents that students have shared with you through Google Drive.  This EMERSON NAMING PROTOCOL looks like this:

Per#   AssignmentTitle  LastName

Per# is the two-digit period number (i.e. 02, 10).

AssignmentTitle* is the exact title assigned by the teacher, with no spaces. 

(i.e. IntroPaper).

LastName is your last name (i.e. Smith).

Assignment Example: 02  IntroPaper  Smith

Remember, Google is built around the search.  Whether images on the internet or documents in your drive, searching is what Google does best.  Once students create documents using the Emerson Naming Protocol, you can use the document's name to search inside your Google Drive.

-If you search "AssignmentTitle" (ie "IntroPaper"), all assignments from any class/student will appear.
      *For easy access later on, you could organize them in the folder by selecting them all and clicking the Folder Icon. For more on organizing Google Docs, see Monday's post.

-If you search "Per# AssignmentTitle" (ie "02 IntroPaper"), all assignments from that period will appear.

-If you search Last Name (ie Smith), any assignment from that student will appear.

Disclaimer: In order to make this work, the AssignmentTitle needs to be unique to that assignment.  Also, every student needs to spell things correctly and share the document with you when they create it.  I usually pull up the Per# AssignmentTitle search up on the smartboard so kids can check that their document was named and shared correctly.

Here are some Google Classroom Poster to help getting your students started.  If we can create some consistency across all Emerson classes, creating/naming a Google Document becomes as natural to students as putting their names on the paper.  It may not end the age-old question "Did you put your name on it?" but it may help Emerson students and teachers know how to answer it.

Minute Trick Monday: Command+Click

COMMAND + CLICK

How do I organize all the Google Docs that people have shared with me without moving them out Shared Folders? 

  This question is one that I have been asked a lot as people's "Shared With Me" list has been getting longer and longer.  The trick is to hold down the COMMAND key when organizing your files.

Here's step-by-step directions on how to take a doc that is in your "Shared With Me" list and move it into a folder that you create in "My Drive." 

1.  Find the desired shared file.  (Hint: You can search for it by typing any word in the doc into the Google search bar in Drive.)

2.  Click on the box to left of the File Name in the Shared with Me list.

3.  Click the File Folder icon above the list to open the ORGANIZE window.

4.  To add the file to a folder in your drive, hold down the COMMAND button and CLICK on the desired folder(or click "create a new folder") in your drive. 

You can use this same tip if you want to organize any Google Doc into more than one file at the same time.