Edmonds Digital Learning

Summer Learning Opportunities For more information:     Check out the links by visiting the PDF  or visit the PD Portal For more information:    Check out the links by visiting the PDF  or visit the  PD Portal Summer Learning Calendar

On any typical day, teachers have to answer thousands of questions. Some questions have easy answers and others, not so much. I know one of my most common questions is, “How do you spell < insert any word here >?” Wouldn’t it be great to have a personal assistant that could help with all kids’ spelling questions? What if I told you that you already do! Thanks to the brilliance of second-grade teacher, Deby Comfort, you may never have to answer spelling questions again! She recently shared that she uses the Google Docs voice typing feature to have kids check spellings of words. After hearing this idea, I pummeled voice typing with some pretty difficult vocabulary to check it out and was totally impressed! To access voice typing, click on the ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘Voice typing’. Google Docs may ask permission to access the microphone and be sure to allow it that access. Once you do that, no one will ever have to ask you how to spell chrysanthemum ever again!

Read & Write Read & Write is a Google Chrome extension intended to help learners who struggle with reading or writing online. However, all learners will benefit from using it. The extension has many great features including word prediction, traditional and picture dictionaries, text-to-speech, screen masking, speech-to-text, single-word translation, highlighting, and more! To access, look for a purple puzzle piece in the extensions bar labeled with an ‘rw’ . After clicking the extension icon, a menu will drop down with all of the Read & Write options. To hide the menu, simply click the icon again. For a short video tutorial, please follow this link for Read & Write Tutorial on YouTube . EquatIO EquatIO is a Google Chrome extension that makes writing math equations and formulas much easier. It allows Chrome users to type equations and formulas using prediction features, LaTeX editing, handwriting recognition, or speech input. There are also many pre-built

In my life, I have witnessed countless presentations. Many have been decent, a few have been exemplary, and some have been downright awful. Many variables can contribute to the quality of a presentation from content, to format, to the tone of the speaker's voice, but one thing that completely ruins a presentation is when a well-intentioned presenter reads text from their slide deck. Instead of using slides to enhance the presentation, the slide deck IS the presentation. Yuck, please excuse me while I gag! So, how can you avoid the presentation doldrums, where your audience is doing nothing but checking their watches every thirty seconds? Simply use the 'Explore' tool to improve your slide layout and make that presentation pop! The 'Explore' tool, formally known as the 'Research' tool, is a fantastic resource for researching topics, image exploration, gathering citations and can be found in the lower right-hand corner of Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets.

Typically, when I think about tools and techniques for collecting and analyzing data, my mind goes to one place: But after a brief journey to the final frontier, I think about the best ways to use student data to promote and progress student learning. Enter Google Sheets and Conditional Formatting! Teachers who use a pretest and posttest instructional model can use Google Sheets to record scores from their classroom-based assessments and then use the Conditional Formatting feature to 'color-code' scores. When the posttest data is entered and conditionally formatted, it creates a quick visual snapshot of gains that were made during the unit. Prior to the unit's end, teachers can use the data they gather to create differentiated groups based on students' specific needs and group them by similar assessment scores. Tracking data this way has many benefits such as: 1. Giving more focus to teacher Collaborative/PLC time.      Teachers use this tool when they meet

When it comes to the family of Google Suite apps, Google Drawings is kind of an underappreciated second cousin. However, just like your real second cousin, once you take a few minutes to get to know her a little better, she's actually pretty awesome. It's then you realize the family is just a little bit cooler than you'd thought. Recently, I guided a fourth-grade class through using Google Drawings to make comics with silly animal pictures. Using Google Drawings, the students searched for images on the web, resized them to put them into three-framed strips, and then added speech bubbles with text boxes for the dialogue. Students then took their comic creations and embedded the images in a Google Slide deck. Throughout the entire lesson, students were completely engaged in their work and wildly enthusiastic to share their creations with classmates, parents, and anyone else willing to look. After students had put the comic on the first slide, they started making more,

Students at all grade levels have an email address and default password to login to their GSuite account and the default password pattern is often taught in elementary grades. This helps students remember their password but it also poses a problem for students interested in accessing a classmate’s password to cause mischief. Here are 10 reasons teachers (yes, even elementary teachers!) should teach students how to reset the default password. Using a birthday chart posted on the wall, students can figure out someone’s password and access the account as an intruder. Intruders can make changes or delete work (this is where learning how to find the revision history on a Google doc comes in handy). Intruders can send malicious emails from someone’s account. Inappropriate docs or slides can be created by intruders. Intruders can destroy files. Intruders can do non-schoolwork searches from a classmate’s account. Intruders can access personal information. Intruders

New online professional development courses are available for Edmonds School District Employees. Learn the ins and outs of Gmail. Visit the Gmail Training Website to access more information about Gmail. Check out these courses as well... Learn how Google Calendar can help organize your day. Learn how Read&Write for Google Chrome can provide supports for reading, writing, and research. TEACHERS  Sign up for Instructional Technology Online PD course 591 in the  PD portal Access the course through Canvas  https://edmonds15.instructure.com/enroll/NKJJAE SUBSTITUTES, PARAS, and OTHER PERSONNEL   Visit the Tech Toolkit Online Learning site for Gmail and Calendar training.  (Links to an external site.)  

Google Classroom Updates for Teachers Topics October 2016 Topics can be added to a classroom, posts can be linked to the topic, and then filter the stream by those topics. Organize your posts by topics (ie. Essays, Discussions, Assignments, Announcements).   1. Add Topics (left side of stream view) 2. Title the Topic 3.  Create or Edit a Post to Identify Topic Select the topics listed on the left side of the stream view in order to see only posts belonging to those topics. Individual Assignments (Differentiation) January 2017 Assign tasks to individual students instead of the entire class. 1. Create an Assignment, Announcement, or Question 2.  Select the Class and Student(s) to Receive the Post  (Default is ALL Students) Individual Assignments (Differentiation) January 2017 Teachers can now receive notifications when work is turned in late or resubmitted.   1. Select the Menu in Classroom  (top

When all news looks the same, how do you know if it is real? W alk into any coffee shop, sporting event, school, or other public venue in 2017 and you will likely find people accessing the Internet from various devices.  Whether people are accessing social media or searching Google, they will likely see headlines and images about news posted within the last few minutes or hours.   In fact, a 2016 survey by the Pew Research Center found that one in four people receive their news online and 50% of the news accessed by 18-29 year olds comes from online sources.   Unlike TV or print, the Internet makes it possible to follow breaking news and updated stories 24/7.   The problem is that many people tend to accept the information posted online as true without looking beyond the surface and then with a simple click of the mouse the story spreads.   It should come as no surprise that a recent study of teenage students, conducted by Stanford University, indicates that most teens ca