Recording Audio Apps

Opinion will allow you to record, edit and publish online for free! To record simply open the app and tap the big red button at the top of the screen.

When you're finished talking, tap the recording button again to stop the recording. You can chop your recording into smaller pieces by tapping on your recording then tapping the scissors icon to cut your recording. Opinion also shares to iMessage, Dropbox, Google Drive, and e-mail. You are also able to Import audio from your local iTunes music library, or Dropbox, iCloud, and Google Drive.

StoryCorps.me will ask you to create an account, but you can use it without. Creating an account will allow you to publish your recordings on the StoryCorps website. The app includes sets of questions that you can use in your interview. 

The question sets are varied depending upon the type of interview you want to conduct. You can swipe through the questions to help you keep the interview on track. Completed recordings can be saved on your device and or shared with the StoryCorps community.

The Opinion app would provide students a quick way to create simple recordings. Suggestions for multiple ways for use in the classroom could include: story reading (students reading a page at a time), interview students in a classroom, book reviews, recap a story....and the list goes on.

StoryCorps.me will take a little more time for students to set-up but great use of documenting interviews involving two or more people. Being able to see the questions while they record should help students keep their interviews concise and on track. You can find more information about StoryCorps.me on their website: https://storycorps.me/.

EDpuzzle Joins Forces with Google Classroom

Within EDpuzzle, you can now post your assigned videos straight to a Google Classroom Course.

There are two ways to join EDpuzzle and Google Classroom.

1. Link classes already created in EDpuzzle to Google Classroom courses.
2. Import Google Classroom courses to create new EDpuzzle classes.

Link EDpuzzle Classes already created to Google Classroom

Import From Google Classroom to EDpuzzle

Assigning an Assignment
To assign an assignment from EDpuzzle to Google Classroom, you will first need to assign a video to your Edpuzzle class. Once the video is assigned, click the Post button in the lower right corner. A new window will appear from Google Classroom allowing you to name the assignment, give it a description and assign a due date. Then click assign.

Note** You may have to allow pop-ups from EDpuzzle. 

Students will see the following when viewing an EDpuzzle assignment in Google Classroom.

Eliminating Choices in Google Forms

One of the great add on tools that can be found in Google Forms is called Choice Eliminator.   There are times either for scheduling appointments to giving students choices on projects that it would be great to furnish the power of choice but also not have the battles of who picked first. Choice Eliminator will do this for you.  

An example of using Choice Eliminator is an English Grammar project.  The students are going to pick the concept that their project will be on and then design their commercial explaining the do's and don'ts for the grammar skill.  

The form for the project was first created.  Click here to see the form.   Feel free to fill in the form, then go back to the form to see that the choice you had made is now gone.

To use Choice Eliminator, you will need to be in the old version of Google Forms.  That is where you will be able to access Add-ons in the menu.  If you haven't already added "Choice Eliminator" to your Add-ons, go to Get Add-ons and search for "Choice Eliminator."  

Once you have added it on.  You can now go to Add-ons and choose Choice Eliminator and Start.  A window will appear on the right hand side.

            

                                                                                   

Turn on the button in the window.  This window will then change so that the questions can be identified for elimination.

When clicking on the question, the automatic default choice is to Eliminate choices.  There is a Choice Option that opens a second window so that it is possible to choose if more than one person will be able to choose that choice.

Turn on the Choice Option by sliding the bar over.

Example of a Project form.  

After completing the form once as a student and choosing the Appositives choice.  When opening the form back up, Appositives is gone from the choices since that is what the user chose.

Uses for in the Classroom:  Scheduling Parent Conferences, Creating groups, Managing Project choice

Using Guided Access on iPads

One of the big needs for education is to keep students focused on the task at hand, and an iPad with various Apps on it is a distraction waiting to happen.  Guided Access gives control to the teacher to be able to keep a student within an App.  Guided Access can even work in the Safari or Chrome browsers to limit students moving off of websites to others they shouldn't be on.

To turn on Guided Access. Open the Settings App on your iPad. Choose the General Settings on the left hand side of the menu bar.  Then choose Accessibility from the right hand side menu.

Now you are in the Accessibility choice of menus.  Scroll down to the bottom and choose Guided Access.

Turn on Guided Access by sliding the button bar to the right.  You will also wish to turn on a Passcode using "Passcode Settings" to set your code for unlocking the Guided Access.   The Accessibility Shortcut will also need to be turned on.  This is how you will trigger the Guided Access when an App is open by clicking the Home button 3 times quickly.  It will also be used to turn off Guided Access by clicking the Home button 3 times quickly and then putting in your passcode.

One of the great features of Guided Access is you can limit access within an a application.  Simply by triple tapping to get the border of black to show, you can circle the areas you do not want to function in the App. 

This then deactivates that region of the app. The circles are retained to show that they are inactive.  Make sure to lock the screen rotation on the iPad before setting the Guided Access for the browser so that when turning the iPad to the other rotation the shading will disappear and the access doesn't block.  

Uses for the classroom:  Using Guided Access for online testing helps to control the App the students are working with and keep them from sharing answers.  Guided Access also offers the ability to set time limits so that you can limit the use by the students.

Quizizz

Quizizz is a multiplayer quiz where students move at their own pace.


Creating a Quiz
Once you click create quiz, you need to name your quiz and decide if you want your quiz to be public or private. You can create up to 50 questions per quiz, uploaded images for questions, and set a time limit from 5 seconds to 15 minutes. Questions are multiple choice with two to four answer choices. Once all questions are entered, click the green finish button. You final steps will be to assign a grade level and subject for the quiz, then click the blue Finish and Create Quiz Button.

 

To Start the Quiz

There are two options for running a quiz. Play Live or Homework. Play Live you would use if the whole class was playing together to review for an upcoming test. Homework would be used if you are using the quizizz as a station or for the student to complete for homework.  

Play the Game
Once students enter in the game code, they start to answer the questions at their own pace. There is a marker that runs across the top of the screen showing them how much time they have to answer each question. After each question is answered, the student gets immediate feedback and is shown where they are on the leader board.   Adorable memes appear after each question is answered to encourage students in their progress.

                             


Realtime Feedback and Viewing Data
You will see realtime updates of student-level progress and you will see a detailed report of the responses by each student. You can download a more detailed excel report like the one shown below.

How can I use Quizizz
Super-fun review sessions
Quick tests and pop-quizzes
Self-paced classwork
At-home remote quizzes

Mail Merge and Google Sheets/Docs

There is a fabulous add-on within Google Docs that will use Google Sheets to create labels through mail merge.  Avery Label Merge is simple to use to create either mailing labels or name tags for the classroom.  Image creating a Google Form to get information from classroom parents and then using their responses to mail information from Sheets Response page.

First off it is necessary to get the Add-on in Google Docs.  Click on the Add-0ns in the Google Docs menu bar.  Choose Get add-ons and search for Avery.

Click on the +Free for the Add-on.  Make sure to allow Avery to access your Google Docs. 

To enable the Avery add-on.  Click on Add-ons again, and select New Merge.

It will then prompt you to select what form of label you will be using and the specific Avery label you will be using.

Choose the type of label.

The mail merge will now prompt you to choose the Google Sheets file you will merge from.

Now it is time to add your fields into your label.  On the right hand side of the Doc form it will show you the fields from the row 1 of your Sheets file.  

As you choose your topics it will place them into the box of the Doc file.  

Blank box

Filled in box.

Once you have your label set up the way that you wish, you are now ready to merge the two files into one.

It will give suggestions about merging and opening a new Document.

 Opens new file that it the program names as the type of label, it is strongly suggested to rename so prior labels aren't overwritten when creating new files.

Education Applications:  

This would be a great tool to use for classroom organization.  After receiving login information for students for different programs, generate labels to have them put in their interactive notebooks for easy access.  Sending out positive parent letters can be quite time consuming when you need to constantly make labels or look up addresses.  Create labels at the beginning of the year and use the labels as a reminder to who you haven't reached out to because their label is still there.

Field trip anytime....

You can take a virtual visit to the zoo or aquarium any day of the week by tuning into one of the following live webcams, which feature a variety of animals.

The webcams are in a multitude of locations around the United States.

Viewing live webcams is capable of having a field trip as needed to destination that would otherwise be impossible for students. You can show the videos to students, hold discussions about what they viewed, and identify key words and actions that students use to write about what they saw.

The areas of academic use could be:

* Science- habitats, observations, research, investigations, environments, record or gather data, and much more

* ELA/SLA- recording thoughts, writing responses, types of writing, research, compare and contrast, guide for literacy text, and uses SIOP for making content comprehensible

* Social Studies- chronology, geography, research, characteristics of locations, environments, and concepts of areas and regions

* Math- attributes, illustrative examples, numbers and operations (addition/subtraction), compare, objects in environment, and fractions

* DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION!!

Houston Zoo

Explore

National Zoo

Monterey Bay Aquarium

San Diego Zoo

Woodland Park Zoo

National Geographic