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GoGuardian is a tool that we use for our secondary students to filter internet but also provide teachers with more control over devices in the classroom. This tool is a wonderful addition to the classroom as it provides teachers with an at-a-glance view of what the students are working on. Although, like any technology service, it is not foolproof.  In this document, the GoGuardian Refresher , it covers setting up classes, excluding absent students from any scenes, and some additional general tips and strategies for managing a 1-1 classroom. In addition, I wanted to provide a few common solutions to some of the most common problems experienced with GoGuardian.  Students say awaiting activity but are clearly active on their device.  In a situation like this, a quick power-refresh of the device will go a long way in helping re-sync that student to the classroom. As classroom teachers, you can easily ask the students to reset their device using the power-refresh shortcut and they should m

The Chromebooks that our students use just got a huge update in regards to speech to text accessibility! Now, a simple keyboard short (search + d) will enable dictation for the students! This is a huge game changer when it comes to our students that have a difficulty typing responses.  In order for this to work, you will have to enable accessibility features, specifically the voice to text option. Then, students will be able to have speech to text available in any input field! 

Google continues to improve Google Docs and the Google Workspace platform! In one of the newer updates, they have added the ability to do Smart Chips that add drop down menus to documents. While this is usually useful in project management, and if you have the students working on complex projects you could introduce these items, but you can also create standardized test like questions where students have to select the proper response.  To set this up, open up your Google Doc and then type a quick reading passage or text set for the students to review. Once you have that, figure out what words you want to remove from the text. Highlight the words and then high the @ sign on your keyboard. Then, create a new drop down list.  Next, add the words that you want to the drop down list. Don't forget to add a blank option first so as to provide the students with a blank. You must add a space or five to create the drop down option. Change the color to allow for easy, quick visual cues as you

Google Forms has added updates to allow for more "secure" testing in Google Forms, with caveats of course. Forms now supports Locked Mode for their forms, meaning that students cannot open other apps, and if they leave the quiz for another tab, the teacher will be notified.  To enable, open a new Google Form at forms.google.com .  Once you have the settings page up, you can make sure that the form is set as a Quiz and then look for "Locked Mode." It is important to note that "Locked Mode" is only supported on managed Chromebooks, or the school issued devices. If a student is using a non-school issued device, their quiz will not be locked.  Once you have made your form a quiz, you just add your questions and set up the quiz as you normally would. Now, when you ask students to complete the quiz, they will be restricted and you will be notified if the students are off task. 

Adobe Spark was one of my all time favorite EdTech tool. It allowed students to create without having to learn how to use complicated programs. This allowed for students to truly demonstrate their knowledge and not their technological know-how or ability.  The good news is that Adobe Spark is still around, it is now known as Creative Cloud Express . All of the awesome features still exist! You can still create graphics, websites, presentations, infographics, and videos quickly and easily. When we talk about novelty and allowing students to prove their knowledge in a different way and this tool allows content to shine through instead of the technology tool.  Not to mention, they have added a ton more functionality including:  The ability to remove backgrounds from images Convert to GIFs Resize Videos Resize Images Merge Videos Convert from PDF!! Combine Files and more!  The best news is, everyone in our district has a free upgrade to the premium version of the account! No need to apply

  Google Docs recently got an update that allows you to add a quick summary to longer documents that are in Google Docs format. Using Artificial Intelligence to scan and read the document and prepare a short summary of the document. If you are looking at it, and disagree, you can set your own! This is a cool feature. As students are writing an essay or paper, this tool can inform them if they are on topic and have written a comprehensive and understandable paper. If the summary is not their position, they might want to start over. From a staff standpoint, this is great to make sure that items match our intent and purpose as we prepare to share findings, data, and more!  To create, simply like the little icon in the corner and select summary. 

  Google Docs has recently launched a new feature that is perfect for a world in which our students are not printing! The Pageless Feature allows for larger photos, graphs, and tables without worrying about page constraints, as well as being able to move seamlessly through a document.  Applicable features in the classroom would be looking at large sets of data, large images, and formatting in tables without worrying about page breaks and how things might get messed up. In order to add it to your Google Document, you can use the GIF below to navigate to the Page Setup Menu and then select pageless. 

In our last post, we introduced the idea of adding a - between the t and the u in YouTube.  This got me to thinking about a few other cool URL tricks that I thought I would share.  If you or your students need to quickly create a new document, presentation, or spreadsheet, you can use this trick. Simply type in docs.new, slides.new, or sheets.new into your browsers URL bar, and you will be taken blank document ready for you to create! Try it out!  This can be useful when a thought comes to mind, or your class takes a turn for something amazing. I know that while I was in the classroom, we would take a turn for something and then have to get something to take some notes. 

One of the things that always had me worried in the classroom is the suggested videos that would pop up after sending a student to YouTube to watch a specific click. Having fallen victim to the YouTube never-ending rabbit hole, I know that you can watch one video and it feeds you another video and so on, and each one tends to go further into the topic or to an opposite extreme. In fact, there is even reporting about this exact effect .  If this is something that you have worried about with your students, I want to share with you a trick that I recently learned about in a book study of the book Building Blocks for Tiny Techies . An amazing educator from the middle part of the state shared this awesome trick: by altering the URL prior to sharing, you have more control over what the students see.  Take a classic YouTube Video . When you follow this link, you are taken to the YouTube that most of us know. You have the video in the middle, a side bar with suggested videos, and maybe an area

As a former Project Based Learning teacher, I would routinely have students draft proposals, work on driving questions, and push the boundaries of what we were trying to accomplish in our project. Even without a project based learning approach, there is a lot that can be accomplished with the approval feature.  For instance, you could approve and review paragraph by paragraph as students work. You could approve hypothesis statements prior to starting a science experiment. You could approve a logo design for a project. You could approve student dress up days or positive behavior interventions and support awards. There are many things that can be done. In addition, it can be used for a help function as students work through complex activities.  Below is a short video of how the process works. I asked myself to approve something, which adds a little extra, but you can see some of the options and features on how this new tool works!  If you have additional questions about this feature, be

Over the summer, our district had the opportunity to participate in a book study of Dr. Phillip Schlechty’s book, Engaging Students: The Next Level of Working on the Work. While the work was originally published in 2011, many of the ideas and thoughts in the work continue to drive what we should try in education. The fascinating thing about this authors work is that the qualities in engaging work have nothing to do with driving technology or a specific tool, instead, it is about what we offer to our students on a regular basis and how we can change it up.  While I would love if you were to read the book, I have provided the slides from our second session this summer that talk about the design qualities of engaging work. Feel free to check it out below. If you have any questions, please let me know! 

Putting together an engaging and visually appealing slideshow can be a daunting task. While Google (and PowerPoint before it) provided users with templates to help the process, times have changed and the templates have not kept up! Enter some amazing resources to gather up some excellent templates. One great way to help me while I was in the classroom is to use a different template for each unit, so that if my naming structure was clear, I could visually see what was what.  Slides Carnival Slides Carnival was one of the first on the scene. They offer hundreds of slide show templates, including holiday templates, for free with no restrictions or account sign up necessary. (To provide credit to the creators, you have to leave the last slide providing credit to the creator(s) in your slideshow to abide by the license rules). You simply make a copy of the slideshow presented on the website and you are free to design to your hearts content. They offer plenty of options depending on what yo