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

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.

Open House Technology Ideas

The all important Open House is a chance to connect with parents and demonstrate what is happening within the classroom.  The use of technology can help to engage and connect with a child's family.

Quick Connection

When preparing for Open House, create a slide presentation using Google Slides and set the Share option to be view for anyone with the link. Make sure to add an FAQ page at the end of your presentation of frequently asked questions.  Now you are ready to share this resource with your parents.  Create a QR code using either Kaywa or Unitag that links to your presentation.  Make small cards with your name and the QR code on it to pass out to students the next day who may not have had parents attend the day before.

Kaywa offers a variety of types of QR codes that it can make from text, URLs, etc.

Unitag has quite a few customizing options.

Gather Information

Create a Google Form to gather information from parents.  To help the parents see the connection between you and them, include a positive statement.  Here is a link to a form that you could make a copy of to edit and make your own.

Here is the link to what the parent's would see.

Again it would be very easy to share the Google Form with a QR code that the parents could scan an input their information straight from their own devices.

Pearltrees- organize all your interests

Pearltrees - Visually Organize and Share Collections of Files and Links

Pearltrees is a visual bookmarking extension that bookmarks your favorite websites in a format of squares and folders.

Pearltrees now allows you to organize collections of links, videos, images, and files. The Pearltrees browser extension allows you to quickly add content from a web page to your collections (bookmarking in a visual format). To combine folders or create sub-folders simply drag and drop one folder on top of another just like you do when making folders of apps on an iPad.

The extension also works on your iPad the same way in your web browser by a free iPad app.

Itunes

The add button allows for your to add a collection, a website, note, pictures or files.

Once you have created a folder of great resources you are able to share in a variety of ways.

Free App Friday: Gmail App

During the month of May, the Instructional Technology team is traveling to all campuses to train teachers and staff on our district's new email system, Gmail. Once you get acclimated to Gmail, you will probably want to be able to check your mail in Gmail on your mobile device instead of FirstClass. To do this on an iOS device, just download Google's free Gmail app from the iTunes store. Once downloaded, all you have to do is open the app and sign in with your BISD Google account username and password and you are ready to go.  You will have the same functionality in the app as you do in your browser on your computer. The app is also available for Android devices.

Google Reader

When I first began to read blogs regularly, I had a long list of bookmarks in my browser that linked to each blog that I read. When I had a chance to sit down and catch up on reading my blogs, I would go down the list of bookmarks, clicking on each one to see if there was a new post. Sometimes none of the blogs had a new post for me to read, so my time was wasted. Then I discovered Google Reader. Reader allowed me to access all of my blogs from one site, and showed me whether a blog had a new post or not so I didn't waste time going to each blog. Now I follow 98 blogs!

If you're a BISD employee, you already have access to your own Google Reader page within BISD's district Google account. To set it up, just log into your account at go.bryanisd.org and click on "More" in the black menu bar at the top of the screen. Then choose "Even More" from the menu that appears.

Scroll down the page and click on "Reader" under the "Social" heading. When you are on the Google Reader page, all you have to do is click the red "Subscribe" button to add a blog to your list (add this blog by copying and pasting in this address: bryantechnology.blogspot.com).

If the blog you are following has unread posts, the blog's name will appear in bold, and a number in parentheses will indicate how many posts are unread by you. To read a blog post, click on the title of a blog from the list on the left, and the post will appear in the window on the right.

Classroom Integration Ideas:

• There are thousands of blogs that relate to education; many are written for teachers by teachers. Follow a few and you can probably find some great ideas to use in your classroom. If you need help getting started, email your Instructional Technology Specialist and ask for suggestions of good blogs to add to your Reader list.