History in Video

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Looking for some historical media to make a lesson pop? Or maybe you’re trying to find the right piece to begin that Socratic conversation with your students? Regardless, PBS comes through for you. Check out Newseum Digital Classroom where PBS has compiled a large collection of videos with summaries, essential questions, and links to continue further inquiry work on the subject. Great stuff. Don’t miss out.

Follow Educators on Twitter by Subject Area

Photo Credit: id-iom

At the beginning of the school year, I did several sessions in-district on using Twitter as a 24/7, self-directed professional development tool. What I failed to do was publish the link to a great resource that lists Twitter users by the subject area they teach. Thanks to a blog post from Alice Keeler, there’s now a pretty comprehensive list of educators you can follow. Try some out and see what gems you find. Be sure to add yourself to the list, too.

Creating Folders and Filters in Google Mail

One of our high school staff had a great question today. He has his students submitting their work through Google Drive and he wondered how to create an email filter to automatically move those incoming email notices about the files being shared into a folder so as to not clutter up his Inbox.

Keep in mind that Google calls their folders labels. Here is a great video that walks you through the entire process in just two minutes.

Easy Formative Assessment in Google Apps

Using Google Apps in your classroom with your students? If not, you should be. There are just way too many tools within the Google Apps environment that can make your life so much more efficient and the students so much more empowered. Take a look at Pear Deck as an example. One of the best parts about using this tool is that both the teacher and student can log into the Pear Deck system using their Google accounts. So, no need to create new ones. Yeah! Another time saver.

As always, let me know if you need help getting rolling with this tool. Always happy to help out.

Chrome & Chromebook Apps For the Classroom

Kelly Clark has a nice post about apps student use in Chrome and on Chromebooks. Each of these apps will also work on any Mac or Windows device running Chrome, so don’t think they’re only for the Chromebook users. You can find them linked below. Mouse over each and see what you think. Click on the one’s you’d like to read more about and maybe add to Chrome. If you want them on your Chromebooks, shoot me an email with the link to the one(s) you want and I will add them in the Dashboard so they appear automatically when students log in.

 

 

Access Google Drive Offline

For years we have pushed for staff to use Google Drive to store their documents and files because we all know that technology fails eventually, and it happens at the most inopportune times. But the upside is that Google does an excellent job of backing your content up regularly, so it will be there even when your laptop or flash drive might crash on you. It’s rare, but it happens, so why not be on the safe side.

The concern by some was that they think they have to have the Internet to access their content on Drive. That’s not accurate. Rich Kiker does a great job in the video below showing you how to access your Drive content even when you’re without Internet access. I’ve been using this for years, and it works great! If you want help getting it setup, let me know.