Spread the Word.....about Google Docs

Why is it that so few teachers and students know about Google Docs?







From the website:

Here's what you can do with documents:

• Upload Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text (or create documents from scratch).
• Use our simple WYSIWYG editor to format your documents, spell-check them, etc.
• Invite others (by e-mail address) to edit or view your documents and spreadsheets.
• Edit documents online with whomever you choose.
• View your documents' and spreadsheets' revision history and roll back to any version.
• Publish documents and spreadsheets online to the world, as Web pages or post documents to your blog.
• Download documents to your desktop as Word, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF, HTML or zip.
• Email your documents out as attachments.

To me, this is one of the most underutilized yet powerful Web2.0 tools available. EVERY teacher who assigns collaborative projects really should be informing their students about Google Docs as well. They go hand in hand. Students' schedules are so busy, it is often difficult or impossible to schedule times for them to work together. Or, students end up emailing each other their work for review. There are inherent problems with this option.

So, turn to Google Docs, an online word processing tool that is accessible anywhere and editable when you are a collaborator. In addition, you can add links, graphics, bookmarks AND insert comments by name. Also, you can easily retrieve an earlier version to review changes and who made them.

This is a tool that every educator should know about. Add it to your toolbox for your own committee work or collaborative projects. It's intuitive, easy to learn and indispensable.

But more importantly, teach your students about Google Docs. They will thank you for it!

Update: Raju mentioned Zoho.com which I have blogged about in the past and which is an online office suite. Check out Zohowriter. It has more toolbar icons than Google Docs but doesn't seem to have the comment feature that Google has. At least I couldn't find it from a quick review of the product. That feature is important to me! Others may be more important to you so compare each product. They take literally seconds to set up.

Being Different

Just came across this video on TeacherTube, an educational version that's like YouTube, only better. It's called "Being Different is a Solution, Not a Problem." It was produced as a PSA by a class of fifth graders for their local PBS station in Reno, Nevada.
Now, through the power of the Web2.0, you and I are able to view it.

First Person Accounts

Those of you who subscribe to my blog know my passion for removing the obstacles to learning for struggling learners. Recently, I posted links to a website that helps to simulate what it is like to have a learning disability.
Now, here are some links to first person accounts on LDOnline from individuals with learning disabilities:

Dyscalculia
Learning Disabilities - A Judge's Perspective
"I'm Not Lazy, I'm Not Stupid, I'm Dyslexic..." - by Henry Winkler, actor
The Good Kid - struggling with undiagnosed learning disabilities
Turning Differences into Advantages - written by the CEO and chairman of Ford Credit

Link here to access all of the stories.

Some will bring tears to your eyes, many will inspire you. But, more importantly, you will gain a better understanding of what life is like for those with learning style differences.
Learning differently doesn't mean unable to learn. It just challenges those of us who are educators to teach differently as well.

"If they can't learn the way we teach, then teach the way they learn." (author unknown)

Visual Schedules

Many younger students benefit from visual schedules to help them stay on task or to gain a visual understanding of their morning. You may have made them in Word or Excel.

Thanks to Beth at Thriving in School, here's a free, online tool which helps to easily create Visual Schedules or Chore Charts. They can be useful for school or home.

Here is one example:



There are many ways to customize the look of the chart (title, font, font size) including themes (winter/summer, Sponge Bob, Thomas, Veggie Tales, Super Heroes, customized theme, etc.) Takes less than five minutes! Let your students choose the theme of the week.

Another free, practical online tool that you will love.

Aha! Moments

Aha moments. We all have them.

Those times when things just click and life is good. Those times when we conceptualize something in a new way that brings greater understanding. Those times when we discover something that we didn't know existed that makes our lives easier.
You know what I mean. You've had them too.
One of my recent "Aha moments" is the realization that I LOVE what I am doing because it is what I am meant to do. All roads lead to this time in my life where I find I can positively impact change in classrooms and help promote success for students. I believe that all students want to learn, that we are all curious by nature. The best education practices build upon student knowledge in a way that is engaging and inspiring. Tapping into those innate qualities is easier than ever due to the proliferation of online resources. The number and quality of free, online and interactive resources available is truly remarkable. There has never been a better time to be an educator.
It is gratifying to be in a position to educate others about the tools that support students in their acquisition of knowledge. It is gratifying to be connected to others through the power of Web 2.0 and to be able to collaborate with and learn from others who are innovators in our field. The education profession benefits from these connections and collaborations. I benefit from these connections and collaborations. This chapter of my life has challenged me to challenge assumptions and stretch my own thinking and share that information whenever I provide professional development.

We are all in process. We are all lifelong learners. And that's a great place to be.
Ah..... life is good!

Interactive Math Sites

Many elementary school age students benefit from review and repetition of math facts and concepts. Is there a way to offer review other than with flashcards? Yes!

Is it possible to do so using free online resources? Absolutely!

Math worksheets are limiting for many students. Think outside the box and add to your instructional toolbox! Check out these five interactive math sites:

• Rain Forest Maths - designed for K - grade 6, hundreds of rain forest themed math activities, may be visually overwhelming for some students
• National Library of Virtual Manipulatives - designed for preK - grade 12, the name says it all!
• Math Skills Practice Activities - designed for grades 3 - 5, everything from place value to money to geometry to fractions to problem-solving and more.
• Math Playground - designed for K - middle school, has fun logic and math games.
• Illuminations - designed for K - 12, ninety-one interactive activities
  

What is wonderful about these sites is they offer additional math activities in an engaging, online and interactive environment. Students can work independently at school or at home using a risk-free, "mistake tolerant" medium. These math activities are examples of universal design for learning. All kids benefit when teachers use UDL principles where there are multiple methods of representation, engagement and expression.

And if you find some great sites on your own, please share them!

Student Voices

Considering adding blogging to your teaching toolbox?

Then head over to Blogical Minds, a blog "created to explore what fifth graders blog and converse about literacies in class and beyond." This post explains in the kids' own words what blogging is to them. They have created webs using Inspiration to provide a graphical representation of the possibilities with blogging. Click on some of the links to the students' own blogs.

I also learned about another cool tool that many students used in their own blogs available at Fodey.com. What do you think of this? (I do wish it was possible to change the font and font size.)



Or, head over to Pre-Cal 405 Winter 2007 for Darren Kuropatwa's class blog. Yesterday's post was from Sandy, a student in the class who was the scribe for the day. Very impressive summary of the math class! She incorporated an online tool, fooplot.com and even Mr. K. commented that her post was "exemplary." Her classmates were also impressed with the quality of her post and seem eager to do an "exemplary" job of their own when it's their turn to scribe. (See comments.) If you look through the scribe and reflection posts, you will see that this is a class of math students who are engaged and learning!

These are two very different examples of student blogging that is happening in some schools. My hat is off to these teachers and the instructional methods they are using in their classrooms.

As Anne Davis says, we need to be telling these stories.

Speech Recognition in Vista

Have you had a chance to explore the latest operating system from Microsoft?

I have yet to try this out for myself as my sense is that schools will be slow to switch over to Vista, Microsoft's new operating system. But....I watched this video from the accessibility lab at Microsoft about the speech recognition features built into Vista and I have to say I'm impressed.
The ease of use (and apparent accuracy) will be incredibly beneficial to our students especially those with physical disabilities that interfere with keyboard and mouse navigation. Besides the number grid feature, this adds another navigation option which shows numbers over icons and seems to facilitate navigation. It also looks much easier to explore the internet independently using the speech recognition built in Vista.

Ease of use. Excellent accuracy. Ability to easily train new words. Simple user interface. Command prompts.

Is this a reason to switch to Vista? It looks like Microsoft got it right this time.

(If you have students with physical disabilities who have tried this, please let me know what they thought. I love to hear the student's perspectives!)

Simple Wikipedia - Explore the Possibilities for Struggling Students

I recently learned about a version of Wikipedia that is especially beneficial for elementary and middle school age students, students with learning disabilities or students who are second language learners, called Simple Wikipedia. The folks behind Wikipedia have created this free, editable version "written in simple English for easy reading." In addition, they have created a Teacher's Guide for the Simple Wikipedia site.

So what's the big deal?

This site is exciting on several levels!

1. Do you have a challenging time accessing age appropriate text online for classroom instruction? This is an excellent resource where we can grab text for our students that is simplified, relative to other online encyclopedia resources. It is possible to attach a voice to it so that students can hear the text being read aloud which provides an independent, multi-sensory experience.

2. Do you need to offer differentiated instruction for your students? Then copy and paste text into Microsoft Word, use the auto-summarize feature and cognitively rescale the information for differentiated instruction in the classroom. This guide provides information about how to autosummarize text - "Autosummarize for Cognitive Rescaling."

3. Teaching your student's about online safety and the accuracy of online resources? The Teacher's Guide highlights instructional benefits of using Simple Wikipedia, including the following:

Most youths will likely at some point become involved in interactive online activities. For educators, youths' involvement with Wikipedia provides an opportunity to survey youths' understanding of online safety, and to teach appropriate practices. Educators can use Wikipedia as a way of teaching students to develop hierarchies of credibility that are essential for navigating and conducting research on the Internet.

Wikipedia provides an opportunity for teachers to discuss the concept of the public domain. Wikipedia is an opportunity to participate in an open community that relies primarily on mutual respect and cooperation, but which is not related to familiar authority figures some youths might tend to oppose.

Editing in Wikipedia is an opportunity to learn to participate in collective editorial processes. Wikipedia presents a ready opportunity for youths to research, compile and publish articles for peer review. For youths who contribute images, selection and production of an image provides opportunities to learn what a market wants from an artist. Youths who master skills for accurate writing and drawing about encyclopedic subjects are better equipped to develop their own style in more creative genres.

Because all articles in Wikipedia must conform to neutral point-of-view, students participating in collaborative editing activities on Wikipedia are building experience in detecting and eliminating bias in writing.

Another resource that provides instructional options.

Ed Reform

Scott McLeod continues to challenge entrenched educational assumptions. With other administrators, he has started a new blog, Leader Talk, "written by school leaders for school leaders."
Today's post, entitled "Goodbye Mr Magoo" by Greg Farr, is outstanding reading and represents a call to change through redefining the Focal Points of ed reform.

If we will begin to approach all new planning and goal setting for our educational institutions within a framework of new “focal points”, I believe we can begin to implement true reforms within our schools. From facilities to faculties, from teaching techniques to technology, what follows is a proposed list of new focal points to use in framing and evaluating our views, approaches, and orientation to educational reforms.

It is inspired writing for educators everywhere to absorb. His passion for promoting constructive change will challenge your thinking. Consider just one of his focal points - #5 Break Traditions - where time and teacher certification are irrelevant, and textbooks, fixed schedules and grades and groupings should be eliminated.

This is not our 20th century classroom. This is the new face of ed reform.