In Part 1 of this topic, I discussed my ideas and preferences for creating assignments and my workflow in Google Classroom. Assigning the work is easy, but it’s in deciding how to read, respond to, and grade, where things can get complicated. Stop Wasting Time I made a huge push last year to not waste time and to help students find ways to...
6 Tips for Managing the 1:1 Classroom I've retweeted it all week long, but in case you missed it, faithful reader, I wanted to share my guest blog post for blog at Imagine Easy, the wonderful people who make Easy Bib and Easy Scholar. I wrote about what I've learned from my start in the 1:1 classroom and gave some advice to help teachers...
As I gear up for the new year, like most teachers, I'm reviewing my course information, updating lesson plans, and rethinking my classroom culture. I'm lucky to be teaching English 10, a course which I've taught, refined, and honed throughout my career. I can teach Elie Wiesel's Night backwards and forwards; I've surely read and taught it enough times. But, like most good...
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been using a lot of If This Then That. It was a little tricky at first, but now I’m kind of addicted, and have often combined recipes to make my workflow easier. IFTTT is a service that creates logical recipes--think of them like programs or commands--that connect different apps. An easy one is this recipe: Blogger to...
Teacher-Centered PD, Growing Your #PLN, and Making Communities Work For You I've written a lot about how I use Google Communities in the classroom to build community and engage students. Find the relevant posts here. Now I want to shift the focus and write about how they can help you--the teacher. Google Communities have the power to be important tools in professional development...
For work that is intended to be read by the teacher, Google Classroom is the go-to in my classroom. Classroom can’t do it all: it’s not an LMS, it isn’t great for class discussions, and it doesn’t integrate multimedia as well as Google Communities, but for student-to-teacher workflow, it’s perfect. In this post, I will walk you through my workflow in assigning, creating,...
Yesterday was awesome. A few weeks ago, Chris Aviles, GEG NJ Leader, put out a call to teachers to attend what he called a Lesson Plan Jam at Google HQ in New York City. I had no idea what to expect, but couldn’t turn down a day at Google learning with friends and GAFE teachers. I love any good professional development opportunities but...
This post is just a test. If all works well, I'll write about all of the recipes I used to create it with If This Then That. This post is just a test. If all works well, I'll write about all of the recipes I used to create it with If This Then That. ...
Welcome to take two. My first try was really good, I think, but as I wrapped up this post, Blogger didn't feel like saving it. Wish me better luck here. Last weekend, I participated in #edcampGlobal, which despite technical difficulties--all on my end and my fault--I enjoyed it a lot. It was nice to talk about my work with Communities again, and to...