Doc Stickers: Google Docs + Google Keep=Brilliant Feedback Idea! Guest Post by Stephanie Filardo

Stephanie Filardo: Photo credit
Valerie Callan Photography

Guest Blog Post by Stephanie Filardo, follow Stephanie's blog here and find her on Twitter here. 

Stephanie is currently a teacher in St. Louis, Missouri

I remember getting papers back with stickers and stamps as a kid.  While I may not remember the specific assignments and what I learned from them, but I remember how it made me feel when I saw a sticker or stamp on them.  While my teachers were just taking stickers from a page and adhering them to all of the student papers, it meant something because they took them time to do it.  They didn't have to do it, they cared enough to do it.  It meant something to read "Excellent!" "Great job!" "A+!" and even better when it was the coveted scratch-n-sniff sticker!

This idea is brought to you by the wonderful integration of Google Docs and Google Keep.  Enjoy!

Today, I'm excited to tell you about DocStickers! If you can give me 90 seconds of your time, this video is worth a watch! Otherwise, continue below.

One of my students asked for this sticker,
so I made it. I may have to provide grape 
bubblegum with it for the full effect though!

With most of my assignments having gone digital, I still want to be able to bring this joy to my students.  I've kicked this idea around for a while, but there really wasn't a seamless way to get images/digital stickers into a Doc...until the latest Google Keep update (in Docs).  So while I can't bring you a way to make your student papers smell like grapes, cherries, or bubble gum, I can show you a way to bring the joy of stickers to your students' digital assignments.  DocStickers was born!

Example of a DocSticker in a student assignment.  "Now you're flying!"

Check out the Original Post for some pre-made DocStickers, templates, and tutorials for you to get started (link opens in a new window):

FREE DOC STICKERS HERE: Original DocStickers Post on i3algebra.blotspot.com

One thing I want to make VERY clear.  This isn't about turning a worksheet into a digital assignment just to add a sticker to it.  It isn't about creating more work for you as a teacher.  It IS about helping you give feedback to students (and making your grading time a little bit cheerier).  It IS about making sure we aren't just "passing back" (returning on Google Classroom) assignments without some sort of feedback.  Much of the work my students do has gone digital.  This was true in my math classroom, and it is a reality in my computer science classes.

There are many forms of feedback I utilize and this is a complement to written and/or verbal feedback.  Can it be more than that?  I hope so.  The Google Keep integration lets you insert more than just images, and Keep is very much a lesser known tool despite its power for cross-device bookmarking, shared lists and notes, etc....the possibilities are seemingly endless.  I look forward to sharing more ways you can utilize this tool both as a teacher and with your students.

I have high school students who remember getting stickers and stamps on their work when it was handed back.  And although it may seem childish, they miss it.  They miss the way it made them feel; .I want to make sure that joy doesn't go the wayside as we go paperless.


Tweet me @i3algebra #DocStickers I'd love to know what you think!

If you would like to share this idea (edcamp, tips session, etc) I'd also love to collaborate with you to help you share this idea in the greater context of student feedback.

Quick-Start Flyer

Google Drawing Templates Galore from the Best of EdTech! (Redux)

Google Drawing Templates: Please do not request access, open the template you want and create a copy. Thanks to everyone who contributed to these set! Eric Curts, Kasey Bell, and Matt Miller.

http://bit.ly/GoogleDrawingTemplates

GradGopher.com has just Changed the Game for Saving Google Apps Data

By Guest Blogger Carlos from Grad Gopher

(P.S. This is NOT a paid post! I asked Carlos to write this for us because Grad Gopher is going to save you TIME and make sure you get all your DATA. It really is AMAZING.)

Our new, game-changing software GradGopher.com was built out of the frustration of teachers and students looking to save their information with no easy solution. GradGopher.com copies your Google Drive (Shared & Owned files), Gmail emails (with attachments), Contacts, and Calendar events to another Google account of your choosing and it only takes a minute to set up!

Unlike Google Takeout,

• GradGopher copies all the files shared with you! 
• GradGopher saves you a ton of time! 

“GradGopher literally saved me about 40-50 hours worth of manual labor. I can't say enough about this. It is really everything you hoped for and more.” - Colin Davitt

• GradGopher puts all your stuff in folders just like it was in your school account, all your organization is saved! 
• GradGopher works really fast! 

Forwarding emails can take more than a month to get all emails. Do you have that amount of time before your account is deleted?

• GradGopher makes sure you can continue to access your files on your phone or wherever!

Within a minute of setup, GradGopher will begin copying for you. Once the copy begins, you have complete freedom; you can close your browser, shutdown your computer, or even go in and out of the accounts if you want!

People are telling us that GradGopher is like magic, but actually it’s just thoughtfully designed software to help you move forward in your life without any hassles! :)

Here’s our “How it Works” video if you want to see it in action! 

If you have any questions, please follow and tweet at us twitter.com/GradGopher!

Like us on facebook: Facebook.com/GradGopher

Check out reviews from teachers, students, and IT admins: Facebook.com/GradGopher/reviews!

Part 1: Get your Computer (and Files) Ready for Summer

Part 1 of the series "Get your Computer Ready For Summer" explores the fastest and easiest way to upload your files to Google Drive. If you have a whole lot of files, wait for Part 2, which will show how to install Google Drive and sync files from your computer's hard drive to the cloud. If this video helps you, then share it!

This video is for educators who need to back up their files so that their computers can be refreshed for the summer. Don't lose your valuable files, back up now to Google Drive! This technique will also let you access your files from any computer or from your phone.

Links you'll need:

http://drive.google.com

http://bit.ly/FileStorageGoogle

Project Based Learning (PBL): How Do I Know if I'm Doing it Right?!?

This video seeks to answer the #1 question I get about Project Based Learning, and that is, "Am I Doing This Right?!?" The question speaks to the integrity of my favorite people, educators, and their desire to do the best they can by the students they teach. I hope this video helps you know where to focus your energy when you are trying to shift your teaching practices.

Special (and HUGE) thanks to my colleague Kristy Edgar for the amazing animations, graphics, and visuals for this video. She made a simple soundtrack come alive and be entertaining.

Handy Google URLs from @friEdTechnology Amy

Until I started researching for this infographic, I didn't even know some of these handy URLs existed. Did you? Do you have one to add? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks,
Amy

Version 4...

Download various versions of this file here

Top Google Add-Ons for Educators

Hope you enjoy this list of the top Add-Ons for Educators. I didn't think of it alone! Here are some sources and some more add-ons for you . . . http://goo.gl/0YJ8Og http://goo.gl/Yj8WoM

3 Minute Tech Tip: Automatically Label Incoming Email with a Filter + a Label

This week's tip comes from a colleague who wanted a way to automatically label email messages based on certain criterion. This technique will DEFINITELY help you keep your inbox organized as well as draw your attention to important topics. Hope you enjoy it! If you do, please hit the thumbs up button you YouTube or share the video with others via your social networks or email.

If you'd like to submit an idea for a tip, please shoot me an email via the contact button on the top right of the blog.

Credits, and because I am asked all the time: Screencast software from Techsmith, Camtasia for Mac does both the cool features you see in this video: the magnifying glass and the picture in picture. I love it. Thanks Techsmith!

Teachers . . . Molders of Dreams, Poem by Clark R. Mollenhoff

This year at our back to school assembly, our Interim Superintendent read the poem below. When he shared it with me, I gotta admit, I got a tear in my eye. So true. As you start the new school year, don't forget, whoever it is you teach, you are molding their dreams.

I'm pretty sure we need this as a bumper sticker . . . 

My Favorite Google Chrome Extensions, Why I Love them, and Why You Will Too!

Learn about a few of my favorite Google Chrome Extensions in this video tutorial for use by education professionals and students. Think of all the time you can save with these great tools!

Getting to Know the New Google Drive Features for the New School Year

You may have noticed some pretty significant changes to Google Drive lately, but if you haven't, no doubt you will as you begin the 2014-15 school year. Here's a great overview from Alice Keeler's blog and here's one in video form from me. Hope these help you get started on the right foot!

Smarter Chrome Lesson 2: Themes & Extensions (Video)

Themes may not be essential to using Chrome, but they sure are fun! Learn how to get and change your theme then see how to install extremely useful utilities into your Chrome browser.

For email subscribers, see the video here. 

Smarter Chrome: Session 1 Bookmarks and Tabs (Video)

If you're just switching over to the Chrome Browser or getting started with Google Apps for Education, this series is for you. Become a Chrome expert in no time starting with the first video in what will soon be a series. Hope you enjoy it!

Takeaway of the Day from the TASA Transformational Leadership Academy: Tell Students about Engagement

Tell students what engagement is. Sometimes they don't know what it is or that they're supposed to be engaged. When they know, they can help teachers design engaging work.

Engagement means students are . . .

attentive
persistent and
committed

Students who find value in their work persist even when it's difficult.

What the Best Teachers Do . . . What the Worst Teachers Do

I've been working lately on a New Teacher Academy and it has had me thinking a lot about the very basics of being a good teacher. My daughter, Sylvie, a high school senior this year, also contributed to these ideas. If you'd like to contribute, please add a comment to this entry or open the Google Doc using the link under this chart and comment there.

Link to the Google Doc (open to comments)

If Teachers Planned Inservice: Another Perspective

If you're in education, I'm sure you've seen the posts called something like "If Teachers Planned Inservice." The implication is that inservice is always boring (which it often is) and that if teachers did it, it would be either 1. nonexistent or 2. less boring. As a person who plans inservice as part of my job, I hope that what I have planned for you is 1. not boring and 2. useful to you. In fact, that's my number one and number two hope for every session I provide.

My question for you though is this: If you are a teacher, you provide a form of "inservice" every day in your classroom. Do you have the same standards for your teaching as you have for mine? I teach you only a few days a year; you teach your students about 185 days a year. How do you maintain the level of interest and relevancy that you expect from me? I'll grant you that's incredibly difficult, but it is worth pondering.

What I want you to know is that I (and many, many others) worked really hard to provide the inservice we will offer to you in the next two weeks. I will be offering sessions during back to school events in three districts and traveling about 800 miles. I'll sleep in hotel rooms some of those nights so that I can be there up to 2 hours before you. I'll stay up late many nights before that planning and tweaking to make sure there is something new that's just for you. I'll do my best to make sure you always have access to a technology device so that you can participate constantly but not so you can check Facebook.

So, I have something to ask you. If I do all this for you, will you do a few things for me?

1. Come to my session with an open mind and a positive attitude.
2. When I ask you a question, nod your head or verbally answer.
3. Make eye contact with me.
4. Don't sit in the back so you can catch up with your friend during my session.
5. Give me a chance to be a resource to help you be more relevant to your students.
6. Judge the inservice I provide by the standards you want used to judge you in your classroom.
7. Volunteer to help plan and provide inservice so that we can make it the best it can be together. (Thank you to my volunteer helper for next week!)
8. Don't knit or crochet during inservice. (Yes, that really happened.)

The truth is, I don't think we'll have ANY problems with ANY of the above next week because you seem to like the inservice I provide. I'm so glad you do! I love providing it for you and I'm honored to work for your district. You are always kind and welcoming to me, and I know you wouldn't really rather have a root canal than attend one of my sessions. BUT, I need you too. Look at me, talk to me, answer my questions, and tell me when you don't understand. Thanks you guys! I'm looking forward to seeing you next week!

New to a Google District? Here Are a Few Skills to Get You Started . . .

Above is an embedded Google Presentation with full view access shared via Google Drive. If you don't see it, try this link. Please feel free to use it with your staff. I'd love to hear from you in the comments if you do.

An Open Letter to Teachers in an Age of High Stakes Testing

This is an open letter to teachers everywhere, but especially here in Texas, the home of the Standardized Test. It is republished here by permission of the author, who wishes to remain anonymous.

Teachers: I’m on your side, I feel your pain, and I am one of you, but having a child who struggles in school has helped me see an entirely different side of things. Please listen with an open mind.

Yesterday evening my fifth grade 11 year old son, let's call him Hank, told me that you said something along the lines of "You'll wish you'd paid attention when you fail the STAAR test and are back in 5th grade again next year!" then looked pointedly at him and two other students. His cheeks reddened as he told me this. He frequently complains about more than one of his teachers being speechless with rage after benchmark or common assessment scores are returned and, in his words, "Everyone fails." He’s also reported more than one teacher refusing to speak to the class after seeing scores.

These near daily reports deeply worry me on many counts . . .

First, I blame myself, and then Hank because obviously, Hank is so frustrating/difficult/non-compliant/slow that as a last resort his teachers feel he must be threatened into working. As I believe you know and care about Hank, you probably have also seen that threatening him does little good. He doesn't understand grading very well or have much respect for it. Having taught in the area where you work with a high percentage of students from poverty for almost all of my teaching career, I'd venture to guess that threatening doesn't work on any but the students you have who are already scared witless of the test. (If anyone throws up on test day, think about that moment when you said "if you fail this, you fail 5th grade,” which we both know is not completely true). The other side of the high-poverty coin is that probably no one else will say anything to you about trying to threaten children into performance, and if they do, they will sound crazy and no one will listen to them. But just because no one says anything doesn't mean it’s the right thing to do.

With as much emphasis on "the test" as I have observed from daily reports from Hank, not just about math, but widespread, I wonder how long it will be before he and others like him, give up on school as they know it?

This is a real concern for me when I consider Hank. I am a lifelong fan of education, but not like this---not when it's all about one test. That's not education. This situation is far from your fault, and I want you to know that if Hank fails the all-powerful test, it will not be your fault or failure, if he can't progress fast enough or won't pay attention long enough, etc. etc., I won't blame you. Take that responsibility off your own shoulders. The system is broken.

Hank has been failing math from time to time most of the year though he has worked at it consistently and by all measures has improved consistently because of your tutelage. So I want to ask you to think about something: What if grades reflected effort and progress and were not tied to the all-powerful test? What if you knew you wouldn't be blamed if a student passed 5th grade math, but failed "the test"? Would that change how you see grading? I was a high school teacher. If I had graded my level high school juniors and seniors according to how the College Board would have evaluated their work, they almost all would have failed. They didn't have the educational background, motivation, or love for my subject that would have allowed them to "pass" by those standards. My level student’s grades were based on effort and progress. I was lucky to have administrators early on who taught me that when 1/2 my class failed, that meant I failed. Now there is an external guide to help the teacher who wants the help to "fail" anyone who "needs to fail," but in my mind, when a student is failing, so is a teacher. My son went to the "lowest performing elementary school in math," so maybe that's why he fails. Well, that's not good enough for me. He's one little boy, not a failing elementary school. It is my job to care for him, but what about all the other students who attended that same elementary school? Each day we will "fail" that school via those pupils. This is feeding the children poison and expecting the elementary school to die. Did you ever keep doing anything you failed at consistently for 9 months? What if there were no way to fail but instead we just kept trying until we achieved success, no matter how long it took? Wouldn’t that be more like real life?

I see the work Hank brings home from school, and I am amazed at the quantity of output, none of which bears any relationship to real life. I understand that the curriculum you have to work with probably does not include much real-world relating, but what about that---the real world, that is? How do you think Hank's motivation (and others like him, for he can't be the only one) would change if any of his most dreaded subject related to the real world and how that math can (and indeed must) be used every day by real people?

Dear Teacher, this is not your fault, but I’m afraid it is your problem. I depend on you, and so does Hank, to inspire him or at least to avoid killing his motivation, to take care of him, and ultimately, to care about him more than about that test.

Ten Things Schools and Teachers Can Do Free With Cel.ly

You are probably familiar with Remind 101 and Class Parrot, but perhaps you haven't yet tried Cel.ly because you thought you already had your texting needs covered or maybe initially it looked too complicated; however, Cel.ly is in a whole other league from those other popular tools and is well worth the effort. A tool with enterprise level power that is completely free is too good to pass up.

A reminder to teachers: Don't take the risk of texting your students directly. It's just not worth it when there's another way to have the same result with none of the risk. Don't put yourself in a position of having a "he said/she said" that could end up in court. ALSO: Group texting is a pain in most apps. Cel.ly solves all of the above.


Here are ten things your school (or district or classroom) can do better and cheaper with Cel.ly.


1. Set up a cell for your entire district for mass notifications, for example, "No school tomorrow due to Hurricane. Check local radio stations for updates."

2. Set up cells for each of your campuses, "Hispanic Heritage Night Tonight 6 p.m. Hope to see you there!"

3. Create QR codes for each cell so that parents can easily sign up. You can use any number of QR code creators (like Zebra Crossing) to make an SMS message. All users have to do is scan the code, and a message is automatically created to the correct number with the correct text information. Here's a sample you can scan to see how it works, or you can go to this URL. (The video below shows how to create this code.)

4. Use your school's cell to collect votes for student council, homecoming queen, and anything else for which you need to gather opinions.

5. Create a cell for each class you teach so that you can do knowledge checks in class or send homework advice. 

6. Ask school sponsors and coaches to use Cel.ly for away games and field trips to notify parents exactly when to pick their students up.  No more waiting around until an hour after the group returns.

7. Send reminders to your students, "Don't forget to study for the quiz tomorrow."

8. Use Cel.ly to create a "Twitter Wall" where Twitter is blocked.

9. Create tip lines for bullying, crime, etc.

10. Schedule messages up to 90 days in advance so you never forget to remind students, teachers, parents, or the public about important events.

Here's how to create a cell and a QR code to direct people to it . . .