Google Forms for Quick Surveys

I know I did this post fairly recently, but I am doing a double in-service for my county's social studies chairs tomorrow so want to put this up for them (and you).

As a chair and teacher I use Google Forms all the time.  For example I sent the members in my department one on Friday to get their choices for classes they want to teach next year.  Each month I also use it for our student of the month.  When I started my new class for teachers I used it to get their e-mails which I pasted into a folder to share with them (you could do the same for your students).  In short, think of anytime you need to collect information from a group of people and using Google Forms (see video above for how to do it) and you can do it instantly.  By the way if you have your recipients put their last name first, then you can easily alphabetize it.

Above and here is the video how to and if you prefer the written word, you can go here. 

The Special Education Classroom

In a few days I am going to some present to some special education teachers.  I make no bones about  the fact that I am a regular education teacher, but I share the room with one and have taught many of them in my technology integration course.  So I did a lot of research and thought about what the special education teachers I know like and came up with this document of items that I am going to go over in the 90 minutes (yes I won't get to it all!).  If you teach in a special education classroom, I'd appreciate some comments or e-mails (kenhalla@gmail.com) with your suggestions. 

History Simulations

If you come to this blog you know that I have a few sponsors one of which is fellow teacher David Harms who has put together a great website with simulations from WWI, WWII and the Cold War.  He also is not content to just let his work be done and is continually updating it.  As a matter of fact if you get his simulations you also get his e-mails which detail his changes and improvements.  Above is an example of one. 

Cel.ly

If you are a follower of my blogs then you know I swear by Remind101 and have a ton of people in my county now using it.  But one of my teacher-students told me the other day about Celly which she loves to use to remind students.  It has an added feature where she can poll students and get instant results even when they are not in class.  Here are some examples for class use.  Another cool idea they have is that they can keep a message stream going amongst the students so they could effectively form a study group after school (not that they aren't already using their phones!).  Here are their how to guides. 

Rome Unit Words

Here is a very nice set of definitions for your Rome unit.  Don't let the childish picture fool you as it will be helpful to your students particularly your ESOL ones.  

Saving Your Browser Tabs

Keeping your tabs open.  We have an iPad, three iPods, an old PC, but only two laptops to share with my three kids and wife.  For some reason my kids still enjoy laptops and often go on my wife's and close her browser that she like to keep open tabs on.  But never fear there are ways to save your browser tabs so that when you open them again, you will still have all of the correct tabs.  This step by step process tells you how to save them in Chrome, Safari, Explorer and Mozilla. 

Digital Learning Day

Today was a fun day as 14 of my students and I got to take part in a Digital Learning Day event at the Newseum in DC.  We got to meet Sec of Education Arne Duncan and take part in a 90 minute webinar explaining all of the things that the Alliance for Excellent Education is doing.  As part of the event, on Monday our DC affiliate for ABC came out and filmed one of my classes which you can see above.   Fellow blogger Scott Campbell was also there making a presentation for a program he did at the Newseum. 

People of Timbuktu Save Manuscripts

This great story explains how a 72 year old librarian saved over 2000 Timbuktu manuscripts from Islamist fundamentalists intent on destroying them. Certain that the fundamentalists would not pay mind to an old and illiterate man with a cane, Abdoulaye Cisse began loading manuscripts onto millet sacks that were on their way to market. And from the market, they were taken by lorry, then motorcycle to the banks of the Niger, and then driven by car to Mali's capital, controlled by the government. That distance, according to the AP story,  is over 600 miles. It all reads like a great thriller. I may even give my kids a copy of the story when we study Africa and Timbuktu in a month. The NY Times also has a good story about the manuscripts.

It was Richard!

British archaeologists confirmed that the remains they found underneath a parking lot outside London are those of King Richard III. NPR did a story on it this afternoon. You can read more about it at the University of Leicester,whose archaeologists and researchers did the the work. Richard III only ruled for two years but remains one of England's most famous kings. Here's the broadcast story from NPR.

Richard III Positively Identified

Scientists finally got the DNA results they wanted and so have positively identified the remains of Richard III.  Here is an article on it. 

History of the World in Two Minutes

Thanks to my brother-in-law, Dan Walker, for this nice overview of the entire history of the world.  It would be interesting how much your world history students recognize.

The Sepoy Rebellion: Animated

Mangal Pandey - Animated Stories - The Sepoy... by GeethanjaliVideos This is a great five minute animated clip about he Sepoy Rebellion that explains the causes in an engaging way. The cartoon focuses on Mangal Pandey, an ordinary sepoy.

The Opium War: CNN Millennium

In AP World, we are starting imperialism. Here is CNN Millennium's excellent 8-minute clip on the Opium War.

Discovery Channel's Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

I'm sure you wouldn't want to show it all, but you could find some gems in this 90 minute production. 

Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu

The Library of Congress has an online exhibit of ancient manuscripts from the libraries of Timbuktu. The manuscripts are on loan from two libraries in Mali. They cover every aspect of life and show the high level of life in ancient Timbuktu. The documents are in Arabic so the Library has furnished summaries along side each document. Some of them include: A Poem on Islamic Law, The Law of Inheritance, The Law of Slavery, Islamic Mysticism, and Islamic Doctrine. Thanks to teacher, Cheryl Davis, for tweeting the link.

Using Twitter to find and disseminate lessons, ideas

I follow a history teacher, David Korfhage, who originally tweeted a link to the online program ThingLink, which allows you to tag images with video, audio, social profiles, and web links. Today, I went to his original post and replied, thanking him and including a link to a lesson I created using ThingLink. I created the lesson on Google Docs and shortened the Google Docs URL using Tiny URl. Within minutes about 12 people were viewing the document. You can go into Google docs and it shows other viewers.

This is all very cool and a wonderful way for teachers all over the country to find and share ideas, lessons, and thoughts.

Berlin Wall: 24th Anniversary of the Fall

In 2009, the Denver Post put these great photographs of the fall of the Berlin Wall online. The site includes 60 stunning images --definitely worth checking out when you teach the Cold War later this Spring. My thanks to history teacher, David Korfhage, for finding the images.

Cheating Using Technology

Normally I like to assume the best from my students, but I know they are not perfect.  Some would say that is reason enough to not use anything other than paper, but I see enough kids in the halls copying each other's paper assignments or using their phones to snap others' work to know technology is not the problem - morality is.  But technology CAN be the solution.  This post is how to check if you suspect something.

1.  Plagiarism is the most prevalent cheating in part because kids have been doing it so long and have not been called on it.  Usually it is blatant as in "Of or relating to Greek history" for the definition of hellenistic.  As I like to tell my students, "No one talks like that."  Secondly if they have cut and pasted the work, they are being lazy so you can find the work simply by cutting and pasting it into a browser and the same site will come right up.  I just put the link from the page in their work and have my proof for the student when we talk.

2.  Copying using Google Drive is also easy to catch.  Go to file (picture on the left) and then "see revision history."  Usually when a kid cheats, he/she simply copies and pastes.  I require my students to put their name and title of the assignment in the title part of a Google Doc and have actually found some kids copy the material and forget about that and literally hand over the name of the kid they copied from.   You can also look at the revision history since it shows the days each time it was accessed.  So if a kid cheats, they will probably only have one entry.  Well what if the assignment legitimately was only done on one day.  At the bottom of a revision history you can show "more detailed revisions" and it will then show multiple times for each day (picture on the right).  Each time you click on the date, you can see the changes that occurred.  Thus any assignment should have more than one entry this way.  Please note that I do not check every assignment this way as it would take too long.  But if a kid has had issues in the past or I am suspect, then it is a very quick and easy check.

Finally we all know we can't stop cheating all together, but technology can make it much easier to do.  For me there is so much on the Internet so student products can be infinitely better than say when I was a kid. But part of stopping the problems above is taking the time to teach what is acceptable, what is legitimate collaboration and what is not tolerated.    

Split Screen to See Multiple Items at Once

This is one of the more popular videos that I have made.  If you want to see two items on your computer at the same time, this one minute video tells you how.  If you have an Apple product and don't mind paying $7, you can do the same thing as it mentioned above (otherwise you can just drag the corners until the windows are the size you want). 

You Tube Without Ads

Free technology for Teachers has a story and link to a great Chrome extension called A Cleaner internet. It cleans up every You Tube video of ads. And it works, all automatically I installed it yesterday and all the You Tube videos run without any ads. The extension is a little tricky to install but if you watch the how to video, you should have no trouble. That video is below.