Google Add-ons

When presented with the opportunity to present on your favorite topic (Google, duh), why say no? Especially when that opportunity happens to be in Tarsus, Turkey. Tarsus! Meeting place of Cleopatra and Mark Antony! Where Saul became Paul! The original lion’s den where Daniel wasn’t eaten! I’m not sure how much of it is actually to be believed, but Tarsus is a pretty historical place and I jumped on the opportunity.

Now, on to add-ons! Transitioning from a classroom teacher to a middle school ELL and LA teacher was quite the jump from an organization standpoint. Where as before I had the time to click on, comment on, and track the progress on 24 persuasive essays/realistic fiction pieces/feature article drafts, I now needed a way to streamline the process for 100 kids. Clicking on 100 essays? Who, me? I needed a method to zero-in on who I would confer with for that day, and to track whether the student I had met with yesterday internalized my teaching points. But how? That’s when I remembered Doctopus, something I had learned in a speed geeking session but never tried.

Doctopus. My new BFF. Doctopus is like the personal assistant you wish you had, and now actually have. It distributes assignments for you. It differentiates for you. It tracks edits and comments and revisions and word counts. It attaches a GOOBRIC onto your assignments so that you can ASSESS ALL OF THE WRITING IN THE SAME WINDOW . I’m sorry I’m yelling. It’s just that I love these add-ons. And if you use it with Google Classroom, your life gets even easier.

I haven’t even mentioned SuperQuiz, introduced to me by friend, colleague, and innovator, Gary Johnston. SuperQuiz is fantastic for gathering and analyzing real-time data, flexibly grouping kids based on areas of strength and need, extending the activities for kids who show mastery and giving instant feedback to kids. Instant, for them and for me.

As my needs changed from the inclusive classroom to subject teacher, these tools helped me provide feedback and meet the needs of more kids, more thoroghly. I can no longer live without them (insert heart-eye-emoji here). Happy Googling!

Ms. Rachel Gabbert

For our April Teachers Teaching Teachers professional development afternoon, I was asked if I’d like to be a part of the speed geeking session being held in the middle school gym. I really wanted to participate (and I was thrilled that they considered me), but I couldn’t for the life of me think of what to present. I wasn’t consistently using any new tools or apps; the elementary had just gotten an iPad cart, and yes we had used it but not in any noteworthy ways. I decided to then switch my perspective. What WERE we doing all day?

Many days, when the students entered the classroom in the morning, they would have a blogging task.” Ok,” I thought. “It’s a possibility.”

During writer’s workshop, we often drafted using GoogleDocs. I felt I was getting a little closer, but still, many teachers were familiar with GoogleDocs.

To communicate our work as scientists and social scientists, we often blogged, created video presentations or GooglePresentations or lab reports on GoogleDocs. Still closer.

During math, we had a math journal, but supplemented the lessons using GooglePresentations that I make and that the kids make. “Huh,” I thought. “I know people use GDocs for other subjects, but how about math?” And thus my speed geeking presentation was born.

Math Possibilities with GoogleApps

The presentation itself was fun to make, and nearly came together on its own. I looked at all the GooglePresentations my students had made and I had used for teaching. They neatly fell into two categories: presentations for instruction (both direct instruction by me, and students teaching other students) and presentations created for enrichment or extension.

I had created PowerPoint presentations the year before, when I used to teach whole group mathematics. Since moving to a workshop model, I no longer instructed everyone at the same time, and I needed a more flexible method of presenting information. I converted everything to GooglePresentation, so I can easily present in class on my iPad to small groups, and then they have the examples and definitions to refer to at home (GooglePresentations are easily viewed and shared with others). It supported my math instruction both in the classroom and outside of it.

Also, students have had opportunities to lead small group review sessions, where they demonstrate how to subtract fractions or how to find the circumference of a circle, and then give sample problems for others to solve. Using GooglePresentations, they can create these reviews together, then allow others to refer to them later as well.

The enrichment problems that the students faced were often those higher-order thinking problems that required creativity and flexibility. They often appear at the end of unit math assessments, where students are asked to solve it then explain how they found their answer. The students often solved the problem, but had weak explanations for their work. By creating a presentation students were forced to slow down, explain their reasoning at each step, and communicate their work to an audience that may not be as familiar with the math concepts as they are. It was a win-win situation, and students got practice solving the challenging problems and using relevant 21st century skills.

Reflecting on the session

It was an exciting atmosphere, and it was fun presenting my five-minute presentation to my colleagues. One thing I would change, I think, is the examples I used in the presentation. While it was relevant for elementary teachers, only a fraction of secondary teachers teach math. While they could still take the ideas of how to use the GooglePresentations in their classrooms, I felt as though many were turned off by the word “math” in the title, as though the session didn’t really pertain to them. Overall, though, I loved the opportunity to share what I was doing in the classroom. I loved the format of the speed geeking session, and hope that more of our PD time is devoted to learning from our colleagues in this way.

$math pres. 2$