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12 Effective Ways To Use Google Drive In Education
…I stumbled across a fabulous new visual guide put together by Susan Oxnevad on Glogster. In the graphic, she showcases a dozen different ways to easily and effectively integrate Google Drive into your classroom.
Google today announced four new tools for building surveys with Google Forms. You can now display progress bars, set up data validation, embed YouTube videos, and post custom messages when your form is closed.
Data validation is a feature I’ve been waiting on!
Via: @mguhlin
Googleâs Python Lessons are Awesome:
The lovably geeky Nick Parlante â a Google employee and CS lecturer at Stanford â has written some awesomely succinct tutorials that not only tell you how you can use Python, but also how you should use Python. This makes them a fantastic resource, regardless of whether youâre just starting, or youâve been working with Python for awhile.
via: @seankaiser
Google Drive Workflows to Use with Students
When youâre wanting to use Google Docs/Drive with students, figuring out which workflow works best for you is one of the biggest challenges. How to access something I want students to turn in to me? How do I put a file out there for my students to have access to?
I would add Doctopus and Goobric to that toolbox.
Via: @kylepace
How To Use Real-Time Technology In 1:1 Classrooms
A concern about 1:1 programs I sometimes hear (and that I once held myself) was that students will always be âplugged inâ and connected to a device. What seems to be happening on 6 Lime, though, is not ubiquitous use of devices. Instead, it is ubiquitous opportunity. Each teacher on this team has the option to make the best instructional choices each day, each class period. Each student on this team has opportunity for choice in his or her learning activity, growing awareness and taking greater responsibility.
I love that term, ubiquitous opportunity!
Google Releases qCraft Mod For Minecraft So Kids Can Explore Quantum Computing
Google recognizes the potential here well, and wanted to add quantum physics into the mix. Thus, the ‘qCraft’ mod was born, one that adds new blocks that add an entirely new mechanic to the game, such as quantum entanglement, superposition, and observer dependency.
The company admits that this isn’t a “perfect scientific simulation”, but there’s such thing as “good enough” here. The goal is to get kids and others interested in quantum physics, and judging from a quick demo, it looks to have major potential.
Very cool!
Do you have a iOS device that doesn’t have Siri? Are you feeling lonely and would like to talk to your device? Maybe Google Search is what you need.
Once you install it, you can ask Google questions, like “Is it going to rain tonight?” or “What time do the buckeyes play today?”. It’s not all the automation that Siri does, but it’s pretty nice.
(Google Chrome also supports dictation in the app)
Google Glass creator says ‘fear-based’ testing regimes block technology
The scientist behind Google Glass wearable technology has criticised the use of restrictive and “fear-based” testing regimes in education, describing a lack of innovation in the system as a crisis.
Back in June I road in the Great Ohio Bike Adventure (GOBA). It consists of a series of 45-6o mile bike rides over the course of a week. During our numerous downtimes, I was having a discussion with my uncle about robots and automated drivers. As we were talking, there was a point I wanted to make but I couldn’t quite remember the information I wanted to use so I told him I “had to look it up”. Of course, his reply was “What did you do before smartphones”. It was at this moment I realized that the smartphone wasn’t a crutch. If it wasn’t for the smartphone, I wouldn’t have know the information existed in the first place. I use my smartphone for making available to me the information that is available.
On Tuesday I had the pleasure of attending my first Ohio Goes Google Conference presented by ITIP Ohio. The sessions I attended were very informative, I picked up quite a few different tips and ideas. (I’ll emphasize my thoughts like this.)
The Google Tool that nobody uses was big. Jennie Magiera talked it up, and then Sean Beavers led a session at lunch on it. Google Moderator allows for classroom participation in which the participants can post ideas and vote on these ideas.
From Jennie: “Here is a copy of my keynote: (PDF) https://sites.google.com/site/Âmagierapresentations/ohio-googÂle-keynote And more info at my Twitter profile: https://twitter.com/msmagiera”Â
Jennie was a very engaging keynote speaker!
Wes had several examples of where his secretary took the initiative and created Google Sheets documents to make her job easier. Pretty impressive.
I missed his name. đ
Sean gave real world examples on how he had used Google Moderator in his classroom, along with a picture of him in shorts.
I had not used FormMule before, looks like it could be very handy. Especially for dealing with input into Google Forms.
A must have Google Chrome Extension!
This was a very cool session. A lot of complaints I hear about Google Docs is that fact that it’s hard to lay things out in the document. By use Google Drawing objects, you can add pizzazz to those boring Google Docs documents.
