Thing 31: Final Reflection and What’s Next?

As I’ve been going through Cool Tools this year I’ve been doing everything Google Suite related and my knowledge of it has been growing. My comfort level is increasing however, I still find it somewhat more puzzling to use compared to its Word counterparts.  I also have not found all the same features I like in Word in its Google counterparts.

Starting with Thing 7: Presentation Tools was a learning experience here the big take away was learning how to share what I create in the Google Suite.  This I’ve learned is a huge part of the Google Suite everything has a nice Share ability.  I created a slide show which I used with the third graders to talk about different genres in the library.  It was a nice visual to go with the book as the students listened to the story.  I always like to present students with books they might be interested with and creating the slide show to go with the story allowed me to do that instead of me holding up each book as we discuss the genre.

Thing 13: Augmented and Virtual Reality was fun and encouraged me to sign up for our districts VR equipment for my students. Now the wait continues until it is our turn.  Apparently, I didn’t really plan the month of February out as well as I thought I did.  The students are still working on their Black History Month research.  In the end, I think I’ll present both Google Slides and Book Creator as an option for presenting their information now that I am familiar with both.

Thing 15: Breakout Edu was more fun than I imagined. I did it with both fifth and sixth grade.  Initially, I did the Black History Month Breakout Edu I created with the sixth graders.  Given how students are so tech savvy and seem able to fix any tech issue thrown at them I thought this would be a cinch for them.  I learned it wasn’t as they weren’t familiar enough with Google Forms and also inputting their answer was more difficult than I thought it would be.  The students really had to look at what the “lock” was asking for regarding the answer.  The big issues were writing the words Black History as a proper noun.  Another clue was a president with seven letters that… again they didn’t want to put a capital letter and were writing presidents with more than 7 letters.  Finally, writing the date as 00/00/0000 format was difficult.  I didn’t modify anything with this though because these are skills I think they need to develop and were not above their level.  It was a great way to reinforce reading information carefully to determine what is being asked of you.  The remaining classes I did my Breakout Edu with completed the Elf Panic as a whole group with me from the Breakout Edu website.  This helped them somewhat when they worked on the one I created yet they still had difficulty inputting what was asked.  Overall it was successful enough that I’ll create more.

Thing 16: Digital Portfolios for Students sparked a conversation with students regarding their Google Classroom accounts. The sixth grade students have been using their Chrome Books for a few years now.  Each year their teachers have been having them do more and more work on them vs just using them to access websites.  Through our conversations some of the students realized they could access stories they had written previously to use for their School of the Arts application for creative writing.  This was really beneficial to a few students.  It would be nice also if the students who were applying to School of the Arts for visual art had taken pictures of their art work with their Chrome Books then they too would have a portfolio built.  I suggested this idea to the art teacher, I’m not sure if she acted on it or not.   As with written work I’m sure there are websites out their which house student art work for students as well.  It is just nice though to use something that the students already have access to for free and will have until they graduate.

Thing 17: eBook Creation allowed me to have fun creating A Choose Your Own Adventure story. I shared it with the students and one of the classes has started to create their own stories.  I’m not too worried about how detailed their stories are because what I really like is they are learning to connect slides and input pictures which they have obtained in a copyright approved method.  Also, it’s giving us the opportunity to cite the source of our pictures.  This is a win-win!  The students are having fun and I’m teaching them the proper way to document sources with something they selected and are interested in.

Thing 20: Social Reading and Book Stuff was very useful. I’ve always wanted to create a Reading Bingo board for the students to promote reading school wide I just didn’t take the time to do it.  I think the students will enjoy this a lot and it will be something to liven up our month of March.  Perhaps, if the students get into it enough we can try it again over Spring Break to motivate the students to read while they are home for the week.

Thing 24: Google Drawing is a great way to have students use their ability to draw to create their own images for documents. The auto draw feature was especially fun.  It’s incredible how it was able to recognize even the oddest item I drew.  I like that Google Drawing could be used with a picture to create book snaps.  This is something I think I might try with one of my difficult fifth grade classes to keep them engaged and excited about what they are reading.

Thing 28: Anything Goes Google what an amazingly simple way to create a website. I really liked this one a lot.  The possibilities are endless really.  I wonder if the students are capable of this on their Chrome Books.  If they are available the students could easily create pages for each of their core subjects and link their work to it.  It would be a great way to present information to a group or even as a fancier way to create and organize their portfolios.  I can’t wait to share this with the sixth grade teacher across the hall from me.  She has been my guinea pig for years when I find “Things” from Cool Tools.  I’m lucky she supports this and even has incorporated many of the “Things” I’ve shared into her teaching lessons with the students.

I teach a lesson for the second graders about the parts of our school library. Using the Google Site to create a webpages for each of the parts of the library will be a fun way to showcase the library.  In the past I’ve used a SmartBoard file to do this.  I think a webpage would be a great way to change it up a bit and still present the information.

Thing 30: D.I.Y. – You Pick opened up the world of possible for me. In the end I decided I wanted to do something with a game for Dr. Seuss’s birthday.  We’ll be celebrating it this week in the library and I didn’t really like the activity I had for the sixth graders.  The Who Wants to be a Millionaire game will be a fun activity.  What I didn’t realize until I finished the game was that if you get the answer wrong the game is over immediately and you have to start over if you want to continue.  Luckily the order of the questions don’t’ change so if you can remember the correct answers you can pick up where you left off.  Thinking about the game though I think students could create games like this as a presentation tool for their classmates.  The students might enjoy this and it would be something different, yet they are familiar with.

This year with Cool Tools was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about the Google Suite. In the future, I hope I’ll be able to use my newly acquired knowledge of the Google Suite to create a March Madness reading competition.  As of yet, I haven’t figured out how to format it.  I’m sure one of the many tools in the Google Suite will be useful once I think through how exactly I would like to have it play out (picture books, chapter books, story book characters…).  If what I heard is true that this is the last year of Cool Tools I wish you luck and will surely miss the opportunity to learn from the class.  This was a great opportunity for me to learn about new technology and because it was a PD I was committed to completing it and implementing what I learned.  I just don’t know if I’ll be able to find time in my busy life to commit so much time researching and finding the information on my own.  Enjoy and you will be greatly missed! Thank you for the opportunity to participate for a few years.

Thing 30: DIY – You Pick

This was a lot of fun and took way more time exploring and getting lost on the internet than I expected. I started out going through each of the items in the Things to Explore section.  I wasn’t sure what I was looking for to do so it was nice there was a lot of information.  Kathy Schrock’s got a lot of information.  It is actually a bit overwhelming.  I would like to fine tune my copyright lessons for the sixth graders, but this just more than I was ready for on a Sunday morning.  I’ve booked marked the site for use at a later time.

Initially, I was interested in the Be Internet Awesome game.  However, I found it difficult to navigate and a suggestion pop-up to change my settings.  For this reason I decided this game wouldn’t be the best choice for my students.  Unfortunately, a district administrator (tech person) is the only person able to change settings on the computers in the library.  Therefore, I think the lack of control with the arrow keys would frustrate the students while playing this game.  I did want some sort of fun game to replace the online safety game I’ve used in the past which has now disappeared from the internet.  It was called Surf Swell Island and it was by Disney, but was out of Australia.

Then I tried Prodigy a math adventure game. This was a lot of fun and I think this would be a fun way to review for the state test coming up.  The questions appear to be asked in a random order of topics.  What I liked was if I got a question wrong the same question reappeared for me to try again with different answers.  I liked the reinforcement of the concept in this manner.

Next I looked into Class Hook which provides tv and movie clips to go with topics you search for. The clips are short 5 minutes or less, but it gives the students real world application to their learning.  I searched copyright and didn’t really get anything useful for elementary students.  I also searched fractions, money, and skeletal system and found some useful clips.  What I really like is there is a box to check if you would like the site to screen out clips with profane language.

Then searching through previous years of AASL list of best websites I came across Kahoot which I have used before and the students enjoyed. So I started searching online for similar student response tools.  Which I found Quiz Show. I played a sample game and found it to be fun so I signed up to create a game.  I downloaded a bunch of images and couldn’t get the images into the questions the way I wanted so I ditched the game.

Finally, I turned to the internet and searched Google for student response tools and came across various websites. One had a Who Wants to be a Millionaire game, but it required a subscription fee.  Then searching for Who Wants to be a Millionaire I came across a free one.  I created a Dr. Seuss Who Wants to be a Millionaire game which I think the students will really enjoy.  It is a public game and I have a password so I can edit the game if changes are needed after I play it with the students which is really nice.

Thing 28: Anything Goes Google

I really am enjoying the abundance of “Things” related to Google. To start I browsed through the class site and read a few articles.  I focused on Google Keep as I have never heard of it.  What I like about Google Keep is the ability to color code and/or label notes to keep them organized.  I also liked the geo reminder.  There have been a lot of times I say the next time we’re at X I need to remember something.  Google Keep will help remind me of something while I am there!  Here I go I’m going to create notes and reminders in Google Keep.  Uh-oh there is only a slight problem I don’t see it and I didn’t think about downloading it until I started writing this blog.

I see Google Sites so let me explore this tool. I am proud to say I created a website!  I browsed the internet and found some information.  First I had to determine what it was and then how to use it.  Through some trial and error I was able to create a website with a sub page, pictures, and text.  I really like this a lot.  I still have a lot of questions regarding this though.  For instance, am I given access to it because I’m a teacher?  Can the students create their own websites?  How many websites or pages can I create?  I think this would be idea for me as a librarian to create websites for the major areas of learning in the library.  Then the information the students need is all in one location.   Now one could say you can do that with Google Classroom too.  However, I’m thinking this can be set up once and it’s done all students can have access to it.  From what I’ve learned about Google Classroom I have to create the classes each year as they aren’t automatically in there for me since I am not a classroom teacher.  When I published my website it had an ability to let others edit your page.  I wonder if this could be used by students to comment on books read to create an interactive dialogue about good books.  Again, I understand there are other platforms specifically for this purpose.  However, if it can be put in one place without requiring a username/password it would be much easier.  The more I play around with it the more I’ll learn.  I looked at “The New Pillars” website created using Google Sites and they were able to do a bit more with it.  I was impressed with the search bar they added.

This is by far my favorite Google Suite application to date! I think the possibilities for this are endless.

Just in Case…  If you can’t access the link via the link above try this one instead.  Click on 54 Flower City School.  Then scroll down to the toward the bottom on the right look for the category Libraries.  Then under libraries click on Library Website.  It should take you to the site I created.

Thing 24: Google Drawings

Of course this “Thing” was another no brainer since it had Google right in the title. I watched the video by Jocelynn Buckentin on the basics of Google Drawing.  This was helpful in drawing lines which aren’t straight and adding images.  Then I went through Robin Limpert’s tutorials which was helpful.  His final post had an infographic of examples using Google Drawing.  I had no idea what a Book Snap was so I looked it up and watched the video on creating one by Tara Martin.  I am glad I watched the video because I didn’t realize the students could take snapshots/pictures with their Chrome Books.  This will make creating book snaps much easier.  They definitely look like it would be something fun my students could do to promote a book they have read.  It made me think it would be fun to print them out and use them for a bulletin board in the hallway.

An activity I completed was a shelf talker.  It took me quite a while to realize the shelf talker I created had to be copied and pasted into a Google Doc if I wanted to design and print out more than one at a time.  Even though Tony Vincent clearly stated in the Venn diagram it was a single canvas it didn’t resonate with me until after 10 minutes of trying to find the hidden button to add another page.  Once that was realized it made me really start to question the uses of Google Drawing.  Then I tried the auto draw feature which was amazing.  It could easily tell the items I drew.  However, I didn’t initially have luck transferring the images into Google Drawing.  I could crop the images, but I couldn’t get rid of the blue selection box from it when I pasted it.  Once I discovered the share option in the menu it was easy.  I think this would be really helpful for students especially the younger ones create images for the books they create.  It is kind of like searching for images online, but we don’t have to worry about them violating any copyright laws.  You can take a look at my attempts here.  Now that I understand the limitations of Google Drawing I can see more uses for it with the students.  I’m not sure what I thought it would be like initially, but I know my expectations weren’t on par to its function.   Now I get it.

Thing 20: Social Reading & Book Stuff

For this “Thing” I created Reading Bingo boards.  There were a lot of interesting topics I looked into before choosing to create the Reading Bingo Boards.  I really liked the International Children’s Digital Library.  I’m going to bring this up to our ELL teachers.  It might be helpful for her and some of the families she works with.  In addition, I really liked the daybydayny.org website.  I currently hang a monthly reading activity calendar outside the library by Reading is Fundamental which the website refers to.  However, I got the idea of including a list of picture books relevant to the month into the library newsletter.  I hadn’t thought of including just a simple books into the newsletter before.  Also, the daily read aloud is nice too.  Upon looking at each of the different states which utilize daybyday.org platform each offers a different read aloud for the day.  What I really liked about NY was parents wouldn’t need to do anything other than press play.  For some of the states parents would need to know how to login which require them to get the access information from their public library.

I also looked into 100 New Year’s Reading Resolutions by Scholastic which is what got me into creating the Reading Bingo Boards. I’ve always wanted to create a Reading Bingo board as a fun way to promote reading however, I just never sat down and did it. I used the knowledge I’m gaining with Google Docs to create two versions of Reading Bingo one for younger students and another for older students.  I can’t wait to go to school on Monday and start promoting the Reading Bingo.  I still need to work out what will happen with students who complete a line on the bingo board.  I like students to be intrinsically motivated however, this isn’t going to work for everyone. Click here to see the boards I created.

Thing 17: eBook Creation

For this Thing I created a choose your own adventure eBook using Google Slides.  What I really liked about this Thing is that I was again able to further my skills using the various tools in the Google Suite.

I was originally going to make an eBook using Google Doc.  The reason was because I wanted to learn how to create PDF documents.  I didn’t create an eBook, but I did create a document and turn it into a PDF.  So I did learn something new with Google Doc.  I ended up choosing Google Slides because I read in the Thing Google Slides would be a good choice if you wanted to make a choose your own adventure story.  My students are really getting into the choose your own adventure stories so I thought I would give one a try.  I used the template Sylvia Duckworth created to develop my story and link the slides appropriately.  Through using Google Slides I did have to learn a bit.  For instance, I had to figure out how to  create a link from slide to slide.  Once I learned this it went quickly.  However, it took more longer than I am happy to admit to see the little selection in the drop down menu for link slide in this presentation.  It also took me a bit to find where the actual link ability would be found.  The final difficulty I had which I did have my son help me with was deleting slides I didn’t use.  I guess because I’m still learning about using the Google Suite and the automatic save feature I’m scared to delete anything as I think I won’t be able to get what ever I delete back.  Perhaps there is a way to get a slide back I deleted but I’m not confident in my knowledge of the Google Suite to do anything daring like that yet on my own.

Creating the eBook was a lot of fun and hopefully it may inspire my students to try writing one on their own.  I didn’t add any pictures as I know how to do that in Google and I really wanted to focus on the creating and linking of the slides.

A previous wonder I’ve had while exploring the Google Suite more in-depth was would I be able to create a Jeopardy game without the use of a powerpoint.  I believe you could using the Google Slides.  It would just take me a bit to figure it all out.  Perhaps, I’ll try making a Jeopardy game in a future Cool Tools task.  To see the Choose your own Adventure eBook click here.

Thing 16: Digital Portfolios for Students

Portfolios are nothing new in the educational world. When I began teaching portfolios were for writing only and were more of a checklist for teachers to collect one writing piece from the various genres taught that year.  The students didn’t really ever look at them or care about them.  They were just passed from teacher to teacher at the end of each year.  Finally, at the end of sixth grade the students were given their portfolio to take home.  The students enjoyed looking at their portfolio in sixth grade and laughing about their earlier pieces.  Then for a while the district or at least the schools I was at didn’t do any portfolios for the students.  Now I’m not in the classroom and I don’t know if the teachers and students do any sort of portfolio.  I know the big thing in my school are Data Binders for each student.

Digital portfolios make a lot of sense and seem a great way to preserve the growth of student learning. The article by Beth Holland “The Art of Reflection” mentioned how diaries were kept long ago and the value they serve today for research and understanding into the works done by famous people of the past.  Even thinking about diaries kept by ordinary citizens in the past gives us clues and insights into the times and lives they lived.  The same would be for a student portfolio.  I love the idea of using the portfolio to showcase work and also reflection on learning.  Often the reflection piece is missing yet it is actually the portion which contains the most insight into the mind of a student and how they learn.  In addition, by adding the reflection piece a student or teacher could use the information to increase the ability for the student to learn by understanding their learning/thinking process.

Reading through the blog by Michael Mohammed he had a much more formal Google Slide portfolio for his students. I never would have thought of using slides to create a portfolio.  I think of it more as a single topic PowerPoint than an ongoing document.  The example pages in his post were very well done and gave me a new understanding.  I think would be a great portfolio for a single class, but not sure how it would work to document multiple class/years of student learning.  I think it would become to length and difficult to maintain organization.

As I looked through the various digital portfolio platforms I’m a fan of using Google as a way to create them. I’m not a fan of using something that is fee based as there is no certainty the fee will be maintained yearly by the district for the portfolios.  In addition, I’m not a fan of using something that is “free” either.  Who is to say there isn’t a change requiring a fee or the whole thing gets closed up leaving students without the ability to access their information.  In addition, I’m kind of leery about putting student information out there on the web with the ability for anyone to access.

Through talking to my son I’ve learned he has never had a paper or digital portfolio at his school. However, as I am learning more and more about Google I’m wondering if his Google Drive isn’t in a sense a digital portfolio.  He’s had a Google account since he was in fifth grade and the work from fifth grade is still on his Google Drive even now that he is in ninth grade.  So in a sense to me it is a portfolio of his work and growth over the years.  What is lacking to this portfolio of a sense are the reflection pieces over the years.  Therefore, I’m a fan of using something we already have for digital portfolios such as Google.  It can be as crude or as fancy as a teacher would like to make it.  Really I’ve learned from browsing through the articles the sky is the limit.

Thing 15: Breakout EDU

This “Thing” was a lot of a fun and a REAL learning experience for me.  I started out by exploring the Breakout EDU website.  I did play the Elf Panic and it was a lot of fun.  I was disappointed to learn I would need a paid subscription to create and post my own digital Breakout EDU on their site.  Then I  did some exploring of the Teaching with Technology Blog.  I wasn’t sure exactly how the Breakouts can be done with Google.  Nonetheless, I really want to get much better working understanding of Google this year so I decided to create my own Breakout EDU using Google.  I started by going online and finding a step by step video about creating your own.  I followed the steps just as the video instructed.  It was somewhat easy to follow, but I did have difficulty figuring out simple mistakes when I tried to create the lock answer portion.

As I created a digital Breakout I learned a lot about using the Google Suite available to me.  The Breakout I made was a Black History Month one.  It had 4 questions requiring the students to do a little research.  I’ve tried using it a few different ways with the students and found each time the students worked on it I’ve learned something new.  The first class did it in pairs and I thought it was perfect.  Only to find out it I should tweak it for the next class.  For instance, just simply sharing it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.  Apparently, I need to email the link to the students I thought they would just see it if I shared it publically, but they didn’t.  Also, the answers didn’t confirm after each question unless they scroll to the bottom and clicked on next.  I still haven’t figured out how to have the next button after each question without scrolling to the bottom.  I also realized students have a really hard time not related to the technology, but understanding how to put a date in with month/day/year.  Finally, for the third class we did the Breakout EDU as a whole class activity.  This worked much better and in the future I think they would be able to do another one in pairs with much success.  The students were good sports and enjoyed working on it, I just had to give a lot of support and figure out the difficulties as they came up.  One group in the first class surprisingly had much success and completed it rather quickly with no support or questions.  This was encouraging to me.  I will definitely make another one as the students seemed to enjoy it once the bugs were worked out.  However, many didn’t finish it, but I still let them leave the library.

Thing 13: Augmented & Virtual Reality

Thing 13 was an interesting topic to explore.  I like the ability to transport my students into their learning using AR or VR without the expense and paperwork necessary to take the students on a field trip.  I explored a few different aspects of this Thing.

First, I explored YouTube 360 videos and was constantly thinking of Ms. Frizzle and the Magic School Bus.  I watched a National Geographic video of a volcano erupting.  It was rather interesting.  It is something the older students would definitely enjoy seeing.  For the younger students I explored a fire house, harvesting corn, and butterflies.  I felt as though I was there experiencing it first hand.  A problem I think students could have is not facing in the correct direction and missing some of the text information embedded in the video.  During a rainforest video I missed animals scampering about as I was facing the wrong direction.  It wasn’t until a few times watching did I catch the animals I missed.  To get a good viewing students should watch the same video multiple times and view from different angels to see everything the video has to offer.

Next, I explored Story Spheres.  Initially from what I read about it I thought it would be a great tool for the students to create a scene from a topic they learned about.  They could then add description to allow the view to see and hear what they learned.  However, I’m not sure how they would get the 360 pictures.  Also, I watched a few examples of the Story Spheres and I was only impressed by the Mason School House example.  They others I saw weren’t really what I would be looking for in a final project for the students.

Lastly, I looked at Book Creator.  I was really interested in using this as a way to create a collaborative eBook with the students for our Black History Project.  Upon reading a few articles and watching a video I believe it is something I can use with the students.  My thought is to have each student create a page for the person they are researching.  Then I’ll put it all together and we can show it during our Black History Month Assembly.  It looked very professional and rather simplistic to use.  At the end of the article I read on Book Creator it did say you could do pretty much the same thing with Google Slides.  This is again the problem I run into.  I find other tools to use instead of using the ones right at the students finger tips.  If we don’t use Book Creator for this project I’ll keep it in mind for the next one.

Thing 7: Presentation Tools

I was intrigued by Thing 7 solely by the statement “If you’re a Google G Suite school, this is a no-brainer!”  Our district has this yet, I don’t use it.  I find I use the old stuff I’ve been using for years and it works for me so why fix something that isn’t broken.  I’ve also found the newer teachers using this for everything.  Recently, the music teacher shared with me that a seasoned classroom teacher approached him about doing a Google professional development for the staff.  I was a bit surprised she would have talked to him about this as she has been through the training herself.  Then we discussed some of the various things he has done with Google and I realized there is more to this than I originally thought.  Also, since our students use Chrome books I really should be doing more with them than I have been.  The students use the library desktops when in the library, but perhaps I should be having them use their Chrome books.  The conversation with the art teacher made me realize the significance of the Chrome books to the students and the underutilization of them by a lot of the staff.

For this Thing I used Google Slides to create visuals to go with the book Joe Bright and the Seven Genre Dudes by Jackie Mims Hopkins.  Creating the slides were a bit similar to using the other tools I’ve used in the past.  The tricky part for me was learning how to share it.  From what I understand I can share it through email invitation.  The person then signs in to their Google account to access what was shared.  I’ve done that with Polly so I hope she is able to view it.  I also added a question at the end with a link for responses.  It will be interesting to receive the information, but also to see if I’ve done it correctly.  This is something I couldn’t do with the traditional power points I’ve done.

In the future I would like to do more with Google Slides as they can easily be accessed via any computer I’m signed into within the district.  I’ve recently learned I’m going to need to be proficient at this after the school renovations are completed and the library receives some upgrades.   To view the Google Slide I created click on this link.