Monday, February 15, 2016

Seesaw - Showcase Student Work for Parents

Written by STII Student: Jason

How many of you have wanted to document what a student is doing? Or document what a student has done? With an app called Seesaw, you can take a picture or video of such thing.
download.png
seesaw-folders-flags-feed-view.pngWhen a student uploads content to Seesaw, it can be organized into a certain folder. It is then accessible by any teacher at any time. This also helps so teachers and students can watch their growth. Another feature that can be used is that a teacher can flag a certain item to either ask a question, or review such item.  This app can also be accessed anywhere. So parents can also watch how their student is doing, along with what they are doing during the school day.

Seesaw is available for the iPad in the app store for free. When parents download the app, they can see only their own student’s work. You only need one iPad in your classroom to use Seesaw! Get started today!


For help getting started or questions, contact Sarah Radcliffe (x2216) or Cara Schueller (x2587)

Friday, February 12, 2016

Google Forms Gets a New Look

For a while now, you may have noticed Google asking if you would like to try the new Forms.  The interface is revamped with a new look and supposedly easier to use.  I have been hesitant to encourage staff to switch to the new forms because the ability to use Add-Ons was not there yet.  For many seasoned Google Forms users this was a huge deficit. Much of the power of Forms comes from how you can control the distribution of the form or manipulate the form submission data with Add-On tools.

I am happy to report that you may make the switch because Add-Ons are now available in the new interface.  Try it out.  I think you will like the new look and features.  


Below are two great articles detailing some recent updates to Google Forms.  



Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Tech Tool Spotlight: Google Docs Creation Links

Tech Tool Spotlight: Google Docs Creation Links
by: Isaac Wisti

The Google Drive suite is a wonderful tool that we use in this district, but it can be a little bit of a hassle to create a new document. You have to go into Google Drive, find the folder you want your document to be in, then you have to click new, and finally click document. This process takes an average of about 20 seconds, and takes even more if you are an extremely organized person that uses a lot of folders. Fortunately, there is an alternative route: you can create a bookmark.

By using a bookmark, you don’t have to enter Google Drive at all, saving you over 15 seconds every single time. This is useful to both students and teachers alike. Not only do you save time, but it is just feels better, at least in my opinion, to click one button rather than go through a 4 step process in order to make a new document.

To get it set up is just a couple simple steps.

First, right click your bookmarks bar and click “Add Page” as shown in the image (similarly, if you are using Firefox hit “New Bookmark”) Addpage.PNG

A menu will pop up, it will ask you to enter a name and link. You can put whatever name you want to in the first box, I recommend the name “New Doc.” The second box must be the following without the parenthesis, (docs.google.com/document/create). You can then click the save button, and you’re done!

Name doc.PNGThis process also works for presentations, spreadsheets, forms, and drawings, you just have to replace the word “document” with the corresponding word.

There are two issues with doing this, however both have solutions. The first is that when you create a document this way, it will be in your main Google Drive folder, not organized at all. The fix for this is to use another feature that allows you to move a document to a folder from within a document.

The other issue is that these bookmarks can take up a lot of space on your bar, this is fixed simply by putting them in folder on your bookmarks bar.

Hopefully you found this as useful as I did, and it will save you some time and hassle.
move2folder.PNG


List of things to replace document (in the link) with:
  • spreadsheets
  • presentation
  • form
  • drawing