Tech Tool Spotlight - Quizlet

-Written by: Emma
Senior student in Student Technology Integration and Innovation

There are important terms to know for every class taught in school. The degree to which students are tested on these terms varies, but a basic familiarity with them is essential. Traditionally, students use flashcards to memorize vocabulary. It’s an effective method of learning, but there are some serious flaws. For one, flashcards are time consuming to make. There are classes with upwards of a hundred words to learn per unit, and making that many flashcards every few weeks just isn’t feasible.

Quizlet.com is a website initially started in 2005 by a fifteen year-old in California looking for an easier way to learn vocabulary for his French class. Essentially, it’s online flashcards. Quizlet is both free for students and easy to use, with many students already having some experience with it. It includes games that make learning entertaining, and offers a free app students can get on their phones should they choose.

Signing up for Quizlet is simple and only requires an email address. If you register as a teacher, you’re given the option to pay $24.99 a year for added features such as tracking student progress. That might be something you’re interested in. If not, there’s an option to skip to the regular teacher version of Quizlet, which still allows you to create classes and add flashcard sets to them just as efficiently as the premium version.

Quizlet is fast, easy, and free if you want it to be. Students can study from their phones, and this way they can’t complain that you’re killing trees with all the study materials you’ve been printing out. With the added ease of not having to buy, store, and keep track of hundreds of notecards and finals right around the corner, there’s really no better time to start using Quizlet.

Tech Tools on the Tech Coach Blog

I have committed time in the past to making sure that I write a blog post (nearly) every Tuesday. Sometimes I stop, with fear. I could say I'm too busy, but really I'm scared. What if no one reads this stuff anyway? What if I feature a tool that people already know about? What if I brag about a tool and then it doesn't work? Fear - maybe I'll think of a better way to do this that will help everyone! Stalling with fear.

I just finished attending one of the best installments of the Slate Technology Conference in WI Dells that I have ever been to. (Search the hashtag #slate2015 to see what you missed!). Kevin Honeycutt was the opening keynote speaker. He said, "Perfect is the enemy of done. Start!" How true is that? I have stalled myself out with worry and in the meantime, missed out on sharing ideas, tips, tools and technology integration with my teachers!

No more! In fact, I'm going to do you one better. I'm not sure if you've heard, but our high school students spend one class period per day fixing broken Chromebooks at the high school. Yes, you read that right. We have a technology repair workshop in our very own district run by high schoolers. You're probably a teacher, a principal, a secretary, support staff... so I don't have to tell you that kids can be amazing.

Our class is called Student Technology Integration and Innovation, or STII for short and these repair students have certain job duties that rotate each week. Several of them diagnose, troubleshoot and repair broken devices; one enters data in our data warehouse spreadsheet; one is a Quality Control Manger and makes sure that the repair is done correctly in a timely fashion and that the Chromebook is cleaned up and charged to be returned in better condition than it was received. Each week, Ms. Amblang takes a couple of students to the public library to help community members with their technology on Tuesdays. And, two students have Special Operations assignments (aka Special Ops). These tasks vary depending on the needs of the workshop and workflow.

Starting next week, there will be a new position for 1-2 students. They will research, vet, and explain technology tools and techniques that could interest teachers in our district. They will blog about those tools or techniques right here on the Tech Coach blog!

So, stay tuned... because when it comes to my STII students, I like to brag about how amazing they are. And this, this is going to be awesome! You'll see, #mightycardinals, the best is yet to come!

How to Sell Items on Watercooler and Make Your Buyers Love You

Being part of the watercooler group is somewhat of a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, you can find things for sale that you never even knew you needed until you saw it posted for such a good deal! But, on the other hand, there are so many emails that clog your inbox. Even if you filter the messages or even ask them to skip your Inbox, it can get overwhelming. Then, as if that isn't enough, you get follow-up emails from people that say when things have been sold. And, yet, there are still about 400 people on watercooler, including me! So, I have some suggestions on how to sell multiple items on watercooler, while also decreasing the impact on people's inboxes and making buyers love you!

First, we can leverage the power of Google to set up a virtual thrift sale. Just create a new folder and set the sharing settings to "anyone with the link can view." People will be able to open your folder and look at all of your goodies. You can right click on the image to enter the name of the item and a price. You can also put a Google document in that folder that provides descriptions and prices. As people purchase your wares, simply delete the photo from the folder and it will not appear to your shoppers.

To start a new folder, use the red "New" (Or "Create") button on the left side of your Google Drive Screen and choose "Folder." A new folder will be created in your Google Drive. You can single-click on that folder and then use the image of the person with the plus by it to change the sharing settings of the folder. You will need to do this in order for people to be able to open your folder. You will likely want to set it so that people with the link can view the folder so that no one except you can delete images from the folder.

Then, begin dragging and dropping or uploading your photos to the new folder. You will want to probably set the folder to thumbnail view so that people see a gallery of photos in the folders.

Once you try this once, you'll see that the setup is pretty easy and then you'll have it all set to go next time you have things to sell. Once your shared folder is set up, then you can share it in your email with the watercooler group. When you compose an email, click the Google Drive symbol near the "Send" button and you can choose your shared folder. That folder will appear as a clickable link in the email.

This way, you can send one email to the watercooler group with information about the types of things you have for sale, and a linked folder of images and/or descriptions. As you sell your items, delete them from the folder and they will no longer be available for viewing. If you need help setting this up, just get in contact with me. You'll make the other 399 members of watercooler so much happier to decrease their watercooler emails by about 75% while still being able to shop for things you never even knew you wanted because it is such a good deal!

For an example, feel free to see my shared folder "Items For Sale" by clicking the link below.

Items For Sale

Folders for shared images work really well for other things also. If you have photos from a field trip, you can upload them to a folder and set it so that anyone with the link can view and send the link to parents. Parents can see and download images of their own students without worrying about attachment limits. You can share a folder of images with students to help further illustrate certain concepts in your classroom. What other things have you used shared folders for?

Got Spelchek?

Just as in other Word Processors like Microsoft Word and Word Perfect, Google Docs also has spellcheck capabilities, but this is a function you can turn on or off. Teachers have noticed that some students have this turned off and are not notified of spelling errors in their documents. Using Spellcheck can be an easy way of catching little mistakes and typos.

To turn Spellcheck, make sure that you select 'Show Spelling Suggestions' on the View menu as seen below.

Almost Like Magic

If you have ever wished there was an easy way to convert an assessment, exit slip or study guide to a Google Form, your wish has come true.

Doc to Forms is an Add-On available in Docs.  This Add-On opens a sidebar in your Google document and makes it very easy to move the text from your doc to the form questions.  Select some text, click here, cut and paste there, add a few semicolons and voila your form is mostly done.

Finish applying your theme and adjusting other necessary settings in the new Google Form and you are ready to start collecting answers.

Now, if there was an Add-On that would create the form questions automatically based on formatting styles - that would be magical.

Google Search Results by Reading Level

Doing research using Google searches with younger students or struggling readers can be difficult if the students can't comprehend the content of the websites. You can use the Search Tools in Google to return search results by reading level - Basic, Intermediate or Advanced. Reading level seems to be based on the length of the text as well as the level of vocabulary.

Reading Paper vs Reading Screens

As our high school has transitioned into becoming a high school 1:1 with mobile computing, teachers have had discussions of the impacts of technology right at the fingertips of high school students. Discussions sometimes hinge on whether or not students should utilize online text; and the differences between reading online and reading offline.

There is research trickling out that supports teachers' instincts to question the difference between reading online and reading offline. First, to define the difference. There are some tasks that take offline reading, say reading a novel, and put them on a device in text format. Researchers are suggesting that there isn't much difference in the reading skills needed to read a novel on paper and read a novel on a device. In fact, often times, applications have built-in dictionary and highlighting options that could enhance the reading of novels. Putting a textbook online doesn't change the skills needed to actually read that textbook.

However, our approach to materials on screens and to materials on paper can differ greatly. According to Dr. Donald Leu, a University of Connecticut - Storrs researcher, there is an overlap in the skills needed to read materials online or offline. Skills such as sounding out words, developing vocabulary and building background knowledge are important to both types of reading.

Where reading online becomes a different exercise than reading offline is when students (or adults) are using the internet to find information. Our approach to reading becomes different on the internet. We are skimming, scanning, looking at a large number of sources to find answers. If students begin to take this same approach to reading a textbook on a laptop, they are no longer gaining a deep understanding of the text. Placing informational text (such as a textbook) that contains the answers, conclusions and outcomes the teacher expects students to gain in front of them requires completely different skills than seeking desired information from a myriad of sources.

Dr. Leu explained that "online reading almost always involves trying to solve a question or problem you've got" and for teachers this means teaching the "reading skill of evaluating the reliability of a web source..., effective email communication or how to synthesize information from multiple sources to draw a conclusion." In a textbook, students are looking for an answer that is already there and has been deemed reliable; on the internet, they are searching for an answer and need to ensure it is from a reliable source.

There seem to be two things going on here: our psychological approach to screens versus paper, and the skills needed to filter online information for reliability. No matter your opinion or nostalgia for feeling and smelling the pages of a paperback novel in your hand or cracking open a new textbook your first week of college, the truth is that both types of reading - online and offline - are important skills for students to know. Students can search for answers with Google at home in their bedrooms much more quickly than consulting Encyclopedia Britannica, but are we setting them up to become fountains of mis-information if we don't ask them to evaluate the millions of results rendered from their query? What can we do to help students become purveyors of web research?




Quotes based on transcripted interview from Education Week, "Growth of Online Reading Fuels New Achievement Gap, Researchers Say."  Sep 2013