Reporting "completion" grades - use IF statements

Much like other districts around the U.S., mine has opted to forgo grades and simply report work as completed/not completed during this time of emergency remote learning. While I agree with this practice for now, it dawned on me that I would be looking at papers or digital submissions twice as many times as before since. Not only do I need to read and provide feedback to students (oftentimes grading it still), I also need to contemplate whether a submission counts as completed or not. I am not averse to doing the former, but the idea of then manually"transforming" that into complete/not complete in order to report it in my LMS, especially when students are all working at different paces, is a real pain. Trying to ease that pain I started thinking of all those skills I've gained from my gamified leaderboards and came up with a relatively easy workflow that for all intents and purposes semi-automates the process.

It all starts with reporting all feedback grading uniformly. I am using Google classroom as my feedback grade book for students, whether manually grading there or importing into it the feedback grading from GoFormative, EdPuzzle, etc., the trick is to make everything worth the same number of points. Once you are ready to report the C/NC grades you will need to download the complete grade book you want to transform as a CSV. In Google classroom, this means going into any of your assignments and clicking on the cog you see on the top right.

Once you have your grade spreadsheet, it is simply a matter of adding an IF statement that references the cell you'd like to change into C/NC. The formula is

=IF(E6>6,"C", IF(E6<=6, "NC"))

Where E6 is the cell that has the grade, and 6 is the points threshold that I decided on as the lower limit of "completeness". C and NC can be whatever you want it to report out.

Once you have that formula in place, it is simply a matter of dragging it down and across to copy it. Both Google sheets or Excell will automatically change the cell references.

Once that is done, your spreadsheet is ready to be uploaded to whichever LMS you are using. While you will have to do it again any time you update your grades, it will at least save you some time and keystrokes.

Have you found any other shortcuts to deal with this new normal? I'd love to hear about them.

Flipgrid as a "Turn-in Bin"

Like many of you before me, I've been struck with Flipgrid fever. This simple, yet powerful tool has transformed many of my classroom discussions and activities, providing a space for students to develop their voice. There have been many relatively recent posts about different ways to use Flipgrid in the classroom.

Catch the Flipgrid Fever
17 ways to incorporate #Flipgridfever in your classroom
End of Year Engagement

I would like to add one more...

As an educator reaching the end of the school year, last week students noticed that I had not created our traditional Edmodo turn-in bin for their Scientist Wanted assignment. As I quickly reached my laptop to create it, I also realized that we would probably not have time to do all presentations. Pondering that thought, inspiration struck. What if instead of simply providing me the link, they also had to create a quick video on Flipgrid, which their peers could then watch and comment upon? I shifted focus to create the Grid, which takes all of two minutes, and vaguely remembered that when submitting a video response you can add a link, and that is when everything coalesced.

I showed students the "main grid" and showed them the prompt:

Introduce the scientist you researched (use his/her full name) and tell us about him/her. Share the information that you think would encourage us to know more. 

When you submit your video, add the link to the poster you created. You are able to do this on the screen where you add your name and the title of your video (name of your scientist).

AFTER you have completed your own video, come back, watch at least one video from your peers and respond to the information about the scientist presented.

With the addition of that final line in the prompt, not only did I get their work and presentation, but also created a space for peer-interaction on the content. This was an EOY activity, but I am now thinking that in future iterations of this, I could change the presentation to a reflection or provide a more specific prompt or frames for the peer commenting.


I would love to know how you use Flipgrid, and if you try it as a turn-in bin, would love to know how it went. Perhaps you may even be tempted to look at some of my students' work and comment on it :)

#EdTech and the 4Cs

I started my career as an educator 10 years ago. At the time, the buzzwords regarding preparing students for college and career was "21-century skills". In fact, I received Trilling and Fadel's "21st Century Skills" as a graduation present from my mentor teacher, and it was the text under which we anchored the AdVENTURE program. Of late, the 21-century skills framework has been distilled into what we now call the "Four Cs" (communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity), and while all of them can be taught and practiced using Google Drive Tools, there are many other free tools that can also be used effectively by both teachers and students as we progress in our educational journey.

These are my favorite:

📝 Collaboration: Tools that help us work together

Scrible: My students use this chrome extension to curate, annotate, tag and share articles. The extension also reminds you when you are on a webpage you previously annotated and prompts you to load previous annotations.

Padlet: A digital canvas that allows users to add all sorts of items as they work together on a project.
I know. There is an uproar among educators because of their new pricing/limits on the number of free Padlets. However, once a Padlet is no longer active, you can export the content to make room for more.

Trello: A project management tool that helps keep teams organized as they work. I create board templates for students. They make a copy of the board, add collaborators and move things around/upload documents, etc. as they get done.

💬 Communication: Tools that help us share what we've done

Blogger: Although part of the Google Apps suite, I still mention it since it is not part of Drive and it is a powerful tool to elevate student's voice. My students write a post at least once a week sharing their learning with the world at large.

Flipgrid: Easily and quickly create topics for students to discuss ideas. These quick videos provide insight into student thinking. I also use it for mini classroom presentations that students can then watch over and over.

Seesaw: Allows students to capture, organize and share their learning. Extremely popular with my elementary colleagues as a way to share classroom activities with parents.

Jilster: A really cool tool that allows you to create online magazines. The best part is that it is collaborative. I create a magazine, assign pages to student editors who can then work collaboratively on their assigned pages.

🎨 Creativity: Tools that help us develop products to explore the content 

WeVideo: Online video editing software. We video has a shallow learning curve and gets students creating in minutes. 

Canva: Easily and quickly create visually stunning flyers, posters, collages, infographics and more. They also have a complete selection of tutorials that help students (and teachers) explore how different design elements work together (or not) to tell a story.

Tinkercad: This easy to use 3D modeling software allows my students to bring their ideas to life in a way that 2D drawing cannot, even if it remains as a virtual product for lack of a 3D printer. 

MakeBeliefsComix: What my students and I like about this site is how easy it is to start creating and the fact that the comic can be printed or e-mailed. Its major con is that it is a "one sitting" deal. However, other comic creator sites come at a price making this site my go-to for quick student developed comics.

💡 Critical Thinking: Tools that help us go beyond the content.

Coggle: Collaborative mind mapping Chrome extension that integrates with Google Drive. My students use it to brainstorm ideas and develop maps to show how the content they are learning integrates with previously understood ideas.

KQED Learn: Students work in a semi-gated environment (all students must be attached to a teacher but can communicate with each other), responding to prompts and investigations. Absolutely awesome to help students extend their thinking as they curate resources and craft responses. This is only available to students in the U.S.

I'm sure that I missed some of your favorites. I invite you to add them in the comments.

Google Draw - the neglected sibling

Click here to go to tips.

For the last several years I have been using Google products for most of my authoring needs. However, my students and I seldom venture outside of the three products that appear when you click that red NEW button on our drives.

Although I also create Forms and have my students create Sites, we have all mostly turned a blind eye to Draw. In fact, up until a few months ago a search of the thousands of documents that I have in my Drive produced maybe 50 or so Draw documents, and those were mostly simple flowcharts or places to host images that I collected to add to Slides and Docs.

This all started changing after I took the "Making Infographics" course at KQED teach. The course itself walked me through the creation process, thinking like a designer, and provided me with many resources for images, icons, fonts and color palettes. From Pixlr to build graphics, to Pexels - a great source of CC0 high def images, to Piktochart - an easy to use infographic maker, the course gave me the tools to start creating.

Now, you may be thinking what does this have to do with Google Draw? Well, once I started on that creative path, I started exploring what I could bring to the classroom. Piktochart, like Canva and Smore (two other sources for creating visually appealing graphics), have two limitations to their use in the classroom - they require an account on the platform and they do not allow multiple editors, or if they do, it cannot be simultaneous. On both those fronts, Google Draw becomes the winner; yes you do need a Google account to use Draw, but most schools have that in place. Before I continue, I do have to give kudos to Canva for two great "side" resources they have - Font Combinations and Color Pallete that you can then use on Google Draw.

Anyway, once it became clear that I would be "limited" to using Draw for creating infographics, I set about figuring out how my students could make them "pretty". Thankfully, many educators and designers have shared their own tips and tricks freely:

• Creating Eyepopping Infographics with Google Drawings - @jmattmiller
• Have Students Create Infographics Using Google Draw - @alicekeeler
• 8 Creative Uses of Google Drawings You Shouldn’t Ignore - @saikytweets
• Google Drawings CHEAT SHEET for Teachers and Students! - @ShakeUpLearning

 Clickable Google Draw Image

Once you familiarize yourself with the basics, the possibilities that open up are endless.Using Google Draw my students and I have created posters, mind maps and trading cards like the ones you see below.

     

Using the technique discussed in "Embedding a Google Drawing with Clickable Links", I've also used it to create clickable learning paths (below) and even display the ranking system for my gamified classroom, which you see at the top of this post.

Motion

Open Motion

Have you found other ways to use Google Draw? I'd love to hear about them.

Leaderboard and Badging with Google Sheets

Many of us in the gamified education game have toyed with different leaderboards and badging systems over the years. I've often dreamed of having a system that does the tracking of XP, badges, and items automatically as I input scores, without having to navigate between spreadsheets copy/pasting data from one to the other. This dream also includes the ability to change ranking and badging systems relatively quickly so that if my students become bored with something I do not have to start from scratch each time. As I've kept toying with this idea, I've been discovering some new tricks on spreadsheets that have allowed me to come up with a template of sorts.

I invite you to make your own copy of the template before I explain what is happening in each sheet. Doing so will allow you to follow along and make changes so that by the end of this post you have your own working copy.

Leaderboard and Badging Template

Leaderboard Sheet

Displays all names, ranks, total XP and badges earned by the students. The names and last names are carried over to all other sheets, so any changes you make there will be present in all other sheets. Inversely, it populates the data and images from the other sheets, so changes made in other sheets will display on the Leaderboard sheet without you needing to make any adjustments to it. This is the only sheet I share with the students.

Ranking Sheet

This is a pivot table created from the data on the Leaderboard sheet. If you are using the template, you do not need to do anything to it, but I am sharing a video that explains how to create one in case you are interested.

Heraldry Sheet

In this sheet, I include the images and points needed for each of the 11 ranks I have in my game this year. If you want to change the image to something else, you will need to have the URL for the image you want to display. Simply substitute that URL within the =image("URL goes here, inside the quotations") formulas found in cells A2-A12. Changing those URLs will automatically change the images on the leaderboard page. Same goes for changes in the name and the min and max XP for each rank, allowing you to quickly change the theme of your ranks as well as make adjustments to your ranking when you find that the range of points for a rank is too wide or too narrow.

Badges Sheet

Much like the heraldry sheet, this sheet contains the images and descriptors for each of the badges I have for this class. Any changes in name or image for the badge are reflected on the Leaderboard sheet. Just like in the Heraldry sheet, to substitute the badge image change the URL of the image to one of your liking within the quotations of the =image("URL") function. All of my badges were created using Google Draw as explained by Alice Keeler in this blog post.

XP Sheets - (Blogs, PBL quests, Mastery Quests, Repeat Assignment)

These are the sheets where I input the XP. Although I could have done this on just one sheet, I prefer to have the different sheets in order to organize the data. The names in all of them are populated from the leaderboard, and the total values calculated in each sheet, populated back into the hidden columns (F-J) on the Leaderboard and added into column E. Changing the names of the sheets will not affect the Leaderboard calculations nor the ranking sheet. The "magic happens" on the cells with a grey background so those are the ones that should not be touched directly.

Badge Tally Sheet

This is the sheet where the badges are "awarded".  You can award the badges "manually" by entering the scores directly, or you can pull those scores from the sheets and manipulating them using the different formulas you see on the sheet. The names for the badges come from the Badges sheet, making it easy to keep everything organized.

Right now, I am toying with adding an Items sheet that will work much like the Badges sheet, and I will share that with you as soon as I am done. If there is anything that does not work, or you find confusing drop me a note in the comment section. I'll gladly help you figure it out.

Twitter, a Tool for Teacher Professional Development

Whenever I share my Twitter experience I face the inevitable, "Oh, I don't use Twitter", and I must admit that the first time I heard about teachers using Twitter, I was skeptical, too. My knee-jerk reaction was, "Social media is for keeping up with family and friends. Twitter, specifically, is for people that, at best, participate in politics and debates, and at worst those who enjoy instigating others. Why would a teacher invite that!" I completely dismissed the idea and patted myself on the back for not following in the trappings of social media.

The second time I became aware of Twitter as a possibility for me was at a conference. Like many others before me, I joined so I could post the happenings at that particular event, but it was more a feeling of shouting things out to the wind. I even remember that there were prizes given out for the most tweets, which pushed me a little to participate, but nothing more than that.  Follow others, why? At the end of that conference, I did not go back in. This cycle was repeated at the next event, and three or more times after that.

A couple of years went by and as I became involved with Edmodo as an ambassador, I completed the "Participate in an #edmodochat" challenge. That was the turning point for me. I started to read the posts, occasionally overcoming the risk of replying with my own ideas. All of a sudden I was involved in a deep conversation about best practices in education with a bunch of people that I had never met. That first hour went by in a flash, and at the end, I had specific ideas that I could put into practice the next day. I left that chat energized and hungry for more.

Fast forward to where I am now, writing about why educators should have Twitter accounts and participate in conversation often.

Twitter as Professional Development

Find and Share Resources

Gone are the days when the work of a teacher was a solo endeavor, or when you could open the file cabinet and teach the same lesson the same way for years on end. At our fingertips we not only have a plethora of resources, but these resources are constantly updated. New tools are imagined every day and ideas are flowing freely. Teachers all over the world are discovering and sharing ways to teach specific content and/or using ed-tech tools in a variety of ways. You may never have thought of using the board game Pandemic to teach about The Columbian Exchange, but @MatthewFarber has.

Staying Updated

Education is changing. Whether you are now an expert at the Common Core Standards, struggling to implement the 3 Dimensions of the NGSS, awaiting Social Studies standards or interested in changing your delivery to include PBL or gamification, the conversations are happening now. And wouldn't you know it, many of these conversations are happening on Twitter. Just take a look at the calendar of education Twitter chats below (managed by @cybraryman1, @conniehamilton, @thomascmurray, @cevans5095 and @jrochelle). You could say, "There is a chat for that!"



For those of you that have never participated in a Twitter chat and that may feel overwhelmed by trying to follow a conversation while remembering the "rules", here is a handy "How To" written by @kelseynhayes. The only thing I would add is the use of @participate's tool - Participate Chat simply because it allows you to focus only on that particular chat and automatically adds the #hashtag to the chat you joined, lessening the risk of tweeting to the wind.

Grow your Professional Learning Network

All of these educators that are sharing on Twitter and participating in Twitter chats are offering up their perspectives. They are also connecting with other educators who are willing to help out when the teaching work gets hard. Perhaps you are struggling to reach a particular student, and you need a sounding board outside of your own site. Maybe you would like to infuse more kindness or creativity into your classroom, or even would like to have a speaker come into your classroom, but do not know where to start. The PLN you create by using Twitter is there to help out. The beauty of this is that Twitter is available 24/7 so those ideas or questions that came to you at 2:00 a.m. as you were grading the last batch of essays can be posted and tagged to be answered by your Twitter connection in Europe as he/she starts the day.
In a similar vein, leaders in education are also on Twitter, and connecting directly with them is only a click away. Perhaps you are not ready to engage them in conversation, but you can infuse what you learn from their posts into your own practice. Here are a couple of lists to get you started:

• 36 Twitter Accounts Teachers Should Follow
• 15 Top Educators to Follow on Twitter in 2017

How to's

If you are ready to get started, I invite you to read Edudemic's The Teacher's Guide to Twitter, and if you are new to the Tweetverse, look below for a handy infographic.

Click to view the original

Source: Twiends

Embedding - Generate your own iFrames

If you are like me, you use a variety of tools to share content with your students. Tools like goFormative, Wizer.me, Symbaloo learning paths, PowerMyLearning, DeckToys and even webpages you create on WIX or GoogleSites, are super useful in part because they allow you to embed content from other places. This means that your students "stay" on the same platform as they work on their assignment, lessening the risk of distractions from moving between platforms. The developers of most of the apps and simulations I add to these sites know that their content is shared on other platforms and they have made it easy by providing embed codes right on their platforms.

But what happens when you find something you really want to share but there is no embed code in sight? In the past, I would just add the link, and teach the students to navigate between several tabs. This is fine for most, but of course some would use this as an excuse to visit something else - that meme generator they've been itching to show off, for example.

After a bit of searching ways to create embed codes, I came across this easy to use iframe code generator

To use it, the only thing you need is the URL of the content/resource you are wanting to embed.

Once you have pasted the URL in place, you click on Generate, and presto your embeddable iFrame Code appears almost as if by magic.

Of course, if you wish, you can also play around with height width, adding scrollbars, borders, etc. (as I did on the "blob-in-blog" above).



Now, depending on where you are going to use that embed code, the only thing you have to worry about is whether the original site's URL is secure or not. Most of the educational sites that have embedding content options do require that the embedded link is "secure" - HTTPS and not just HTTP.

I have also shared this with my students, who blog for me every week and who sometimes create products using different edtech tools. They, in turn, publish their products by embedding them into their blogs.

I am sure there are other iframe generators out there. Have you found a different one that you like better? Share with us in the comment section.

Countdown calendars using Thinglink

Although I recognize that not all my students celebrate the holidays the same way, for the past few years I've been creating advent calendars simply because I love the idea of having little treats that countdown to something. In the spirit of inclusion, I've also created Hannukah menorahs, but this still begs the question of what to do with students who do not celebrate in either of those ways.

        

Hour of Code Spotlight link                                                                                     Hanukkah Spotlight link

The more I thought about it, the more it became evident that I could use the same concept for a myriad of purposes. For example, we could countdown the days until the holiday break, or better yet countdown the days until "we meet again in 2018". It is all about inspiring students to continue learning every day.

Creating a digital calendar:

1. Open a blank Google drawing.
2. Add a background and images appropriate for the purpose. This could be holidays or not.
3. Add a table, and label with the calendar dates you want to include.

Here is my December 2017 version, if you would like a template.

4.  Click on File>Download as>jpeg image (it can also be a png).
5. Upload the image to Thinglink.
6. Start tagging your calendar with links, prompts, apps or games. Whatever you want to share with your students.

Repurposing your image, unfortunately, requires that you follow the process again, but once you have the tags it is easy to simply copy/paste the links into your new image. For example, here is my 2017 PD Advent calendar repurposed as a Winter Break calendar.

        

                             Advent PD Spotlight link 

Different feel, but still fun.

Now, if free forming is more your style, you can also choose to go that route as I did in these EdTech and Science Games Holiday-themed images.

   
Edtech Spotlight link                                                                                                Science Games Spotlight Link

Although these are all holiday/winter themed, countdown calendars can also be used to launch a unit of study or review activities until a test. If you gamify, you can use them as we are reaching a boss battle or the end of a game chapter. The possibilities are endless!

Feel free to share how you have used countdown calendars in your classroom. I'd love to share ideas.

An Hour of Code With Edmodo

Hour of Code and Edmodo is a logical pairing. Hour of Code (December 4-10, 2017) is a yearly worldwide event that promotes the idea that anyone can code, aimed at encouraging students to develop an interest in STEM. Edmodo is a superior LMS that allows teachers and students to connect by sharing ideas and helpful tips.

The question then is "How can you use Edmodo to run an Hour of Code event?" This is my answer:

Professional Learning Networks

Image Source: http://www.quotehd.com/imagequotes/TopAuthors/pablo-picasso-quote-i-am-always-doing-things-i-cant-do-thats-how-i-get-to-do.jpg

I am quite often asked variations of the questions "How did you find that?". The truth is that I, personally, do not always "find that". The reality is that other people, my ever growing, active and remarkable reliable Professional Learning Network (PLN), are the ones truly responsible for the reputation I enjoy as an innovative educator. Because of my PLC, I've learned and then shared about gamification, hyperdocs, project-based learning, virtual reality uses in the classroom and so much more. This is my invitation to you to grow your own PLN.

What is a Professional Learning Network?

A PLN is your own personalized “network” of educators who share a common interest with you and is available to provide pointers, tips, and resources to you in order to help you explore that common interest is depth. This PLN goes beyond the teachers at your site or district, encompassing educators who you may not have met in person!

Why and How?

I was recently "challenged" by a member of my PLN to explain why a PLN is important and how do you grow one. This is what I came up with:

Where do I find educators to grow my PLN?

Most members of my PLC hail from three places:

• Edmodo: You may be thinking, that is a learning platform for students. But for me, that has almost become a secondary use. Anytime I need pretty much anything I go to Edmodo and post in their topics or community streams. Educators from all over the world are there ready and willing to offer their insights. In this article, Edmodo explains how to use their platform as a PLN. 3 Steps to Creating Your Personal Learning Network (PLN).
• Twitter: The dreaded words, social media, may be coming up in your head, raising all sorts of red flags. I was also very wary of it and did not even have an account until an Edmodo member of my PLC suggested I join a Twitter chat. WOW, that experience completely changed my perception of Twitter as a source of personalized learning. Education Twitter chats are happening almost every hour of the day! Anything you want to discuss, there's a Twitter chat for that. Just take a look at this calendar of education related chats - Chat Calendar. Once you join a chat, even if just to read the stream, you are sure to discover educators to follow. Here are a couple of suggestions from Edudemic, to which I would add @alicekeeler, @MatthewFarber, ‏‏@mpilakow‏, @mr_isaacs, @mrmatera, @legendlearning, @Ted_NSTA, @FredEnde, @legendlearning and‏ @carrierenfro, at least.
• KQEDTeach: Relatively new, but so powerful. They are offering PD courses on demand to complete at your own pace. However, once you join you have access to all the other educators that are taking the courses, with a place to have threaded discussions. Basically, you learn together and continue the conversation within the platform. Who can say no to that?

I hope this post inspires you to grow your PLN beyond your site or district. As Pablo Picasso once said, "I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them". 

Chrome Extensions for Teachers

Although I have been in a 1:1 classroom for many years and my students have been exploring Chrome extensions for a while, it was not until my district disabled student access to Chrome extensions that they became an issue for me. Perhaps it was that little rebel in me that questioned that decision or simply a case of "you don't know what you got till it's gone". While I understood the need to get rid of the annoying bee in student devices, having to go to IT to enable a specific extension pushed me to find the ones that I believe are a must for every teacher and student.

So what exactly is a Chrome extension?

Chrome extensions are small programs that live inside your Chrome browser, allowing you to customize Chrome, adding features and functionality. Once you install them, they appear next to your address bar, and you access them by clicking on them, much like you would a bookmark. Watch this video to learn how to install them.

The cool thing about extensions is that once you have added them, they are "attached" to your Chrome browser, so it does not matter which device you are using, as long as you are logged in to your Chrome browser, they are there for you to use.

There are thousands of extensions, and a simple search of education related extensions in the Chrome Webstore is bound to be overwhelming, so which ones are the ones that I chose for my students?

Chrome Extensions You Should Know About

Share to Classroom : Allows both teachers and students to push web pages directly to Google Classroom. Everybody goes to the right page without the need to type or copy/paste long URLs.

Mercury Reader: You found the perfect article to share with your students, but it is riddled with ads and distractions. With one click, this extension removes all that noise leaving only the text and images and helping your students focus on the content. You can even print the uncluttered article.

Read&Write for Google Chrome: By far the accessibility tool. With dual color highlighting, this extension will read any article, web page or document to your struggling readers. Premium functionality, as explained by Teacher's Tech, is available for free to teachers.

Scrible Toolbar: My absolute favorite collaborative tool for reading online. Scrible will allow you and/or your students to annotate any web page together! Once the permalink is created and shared among collaborators, Scrible will not only keep all notes and allow you to sort them, but also will notify you when you are on a web page you previously annotated.

Grammarly: Your students are ready to respond to a prompt, but they have been raised in a world with spell checker and although they know better, they don't always revise. Grammarly will identify misused homophones, subject-verb agreement and other common grammar and spelling mistakes. It can get annoying at times, but much better than the alternative.

Screencastify: If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is priceless. Screencastify allows you to quickly record, edit, annotate, store, and share video screen captures. Create a mini-lesson or have your students record their thinking as they work out a problem. The mini-videos are instantly stored in your Google drive for easy access and sharing.

Install and Remove Chrome Extensions

More Extensions, please...

For more Chrome extensions for education, I invite you to visit ShakeUpLearning's searchable database. And if you use one that is a must in your classroom, let me know!