December 2017 Tech Tips

Big update to Google Calendar a full redesigned https://blog.google/products/g-suite/time-refresh-introducing-new-look-and-features-google-calendar-web/

La Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys a créer un site sur l'utilisation du iPad pédagogiquement avec des bonnes ressources francophone. https://sites.google.com/csmb.qc.ca/ipad-en-pedagogie/accueil

Over the holidays you can attend this online conference for some great free PD http://ditchsummit.com 

Creacamp

This one day conference hosted at Collège Beaubois in collaboration with École Branché allowed partificapants to deep dive into one subject of their interests for one day. Each area had mentors to guide participants in an activity. I chose the makerspace activity and it began with a discussion on the impact the maker mouvement has had on Collège Beaubois and how this has been reflected on the teahcers and students.

My final creation was this on the laser cutter

AccesEDU

AccesEdu is a three day conference hosted a l'Académie Lafontaine on November 3rd to 5th 2017.


The first day we visited classrooms and saw the school in action, I had brought my HTC Vive Virtual Reality kit and shared with students at lunch time the wonder of VR.

A few resources to share from the conference.

Peergrade.io is a great platform that combined with Google Classroom allows you to have students peer edit other students work.

Spiral.ac is a collaborative platform that also integrates easily with Google Classroom offering you a bunch of neat tools much like edpuzzle and quickfire questions.

Julie Chanberland and Julie Chandonnet made us live a BreakoutEDU

Ever wanted to try Sketchnoting, Marie-André Ouimet is awesome and here is her website La folie du scketchnote 

We also were announced the launch of Ludoka by a group of teachers that demand change in our education system in Quebec, Pierre Gagnon spoke passionately about this project and I can't wait to see how it develops. http://www.ludoka.org/

October 2017 Tech Tips - Comments in Google Docs

For those who like to leave comments on Google Docs, here is a new add-on called Check Mark. Once activated you can highlight text in Google Docs and a series of buttons will pop up. Each one will add a comment regarding a perticular issue, I included a PDF with the abbreviations. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/checkmark/kfddponboekcbjlhhjinkefjollhhidp/support

For customized commenting you can use Permanent Clipboard you will be able to right click and select Permanent Clipboard to write quickly pre created comments. You can use Permanent Clipboard anywhere in Google, so for adding comments in report cards this could save you some time.

Gsuite for Education Updates for 2017-18 School Year

This summer has been full of updates from Google. So I wanted to write up a short list:

1. Google Earth has been fully updated and is now available on the iPad as well as all Chrome browsers. This new streamlined version offers tours and tit bits of information on a whole bunch of locations. The interface is very clean and super easy to navigate in 3D.

2. Google Expeditions can now be run independently and has added annotations as an option allowing for exploration and analysis.

3. Google Classroom. 

                     a. You can now rearrange your classes in the class menu

                     b.  You can now see work by student simply click on a class, Students and click a name                             to see all their work in one place.

                     c. Google Form Quizzes auto correct and send grade to Google Classroom

                     

Here is a more comprehensive list made by google https://www.blog.google/topics/education/10-ways-were-making-classroom-and-forms-easier-teachers-school-year/

4. Google Backup and Sync, brand new tool to replace Google Sync, easier to configure and should be more efficient then previous app.

5. Jamboard, ios app that is like an shared whiteboard allowing for creative brainstorming, colloboration and you can bring in google elements all in one place. You don't need the actual board, the app runs on tablets, computer and phones as well.

A lot of other features have been added on in different apps but these were the major updates.

ISTE 2017 : San Antonio

So after a crazy week, I can finally talk about how huge ISTE 2017 was this year.

With about 21000 people in attendance from teachers, tech integrators, vendors, presenters, volunteers, etc... the event really shines because of the sheer amount of people that you can meet during the four days.

The Expo Hall is really big, and I mean really big:

We got to meet a whole bunch of vendors and get a lot of swag. Thanks to the guys at IPevo, i-Ready, Microbit and Google for getting us to great stuff.

On the first morning of the conference, I had the oppertunity to go to a CoffeeEdu, a concept created by Alice Keeler @alicekeeler ,


Its sort of like an unconference of people to discuss any issues, we were so many that just doing greetings took the whole time we had. But gathering so many people at 6:00am demonstrates that the Ed Tech tribe is very keen at getting together and sharing.

We also had the pleasure of hearing Jennie Magiera @MsMagiera as a keynoter, here is a sketchnote of her talk by Marie-Andrée Ouimet @maouimet.

Of course San Antonio is home to the Alamo, the Spirit of Freedom. So getthing a tour was really interesting from a history perspective. And the River Walk is a beautiful walk filled with great shops and restaurants.

I did a presentation on an Introduction to Virtual Reality in the Classroom, here is the link to the slidedeck.

Of course meeting with all the other delegates from Québec was a threat and allowed us to discuss and talk about what we could do when we get back to keep the conversation going. Of course thats what its all about, the people you meet, the connections you make and bonds you keep allow you to grow both professionally and personally.

photo credit to Jaime Casap @jcasap

ISTE 2017 Presentation Slides

I will do another post about everything I saw at ISTE 2017, but for now here are my slides from my presentation:

Intro to VR in the Classroom

Tech Tips May 2017

Here are some tech tips to enjoy during your long weekend.

1. Wanna learn the basic of electronic music creation, you can explore Ableton's website for new interactive lessons on the basics. Ableton is a software Adam uses in his classes so if you want to explore this in more detail, we are lucky to have an expert on staff. https://learningmusic.ableton.com/index.html

2. Classroomscreen: this is small web app that allows you to put a clock, timer, instructions, QR code on the board for students to see and keep tabs of what they should be doing. http://classroomscreen.com

3. Series of 4 documentaries on different web terms and some things to be mindful of when navigating the internet. This is more for you to be aware not really about scaring you.

a) Profiling-:What facebook knows about you?

b) Prices

c) Machine Learning

d) Artificial Intelligence

https://www.propublica.org/article/breaking-the-black-box-what-facebook-knows-about-you

4. Microsoft Translator: Much like Google Translate, Microsoft can take photos of text and translate it, type or speak and word, but now it also does two way simultaneous conversation translation between two languages automatically. Available on PC, MAC or IOS https://translator.microsoft.com/

5. VLC Media Player which is installed on all our PCs at the school has some nifty functions check out this video to learn 12 cool things such as Screen recording, file type converting, etc... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TTwBwQunwE

6. Love taking photos with your phone, Apple has just prepared a series of videos on how to shoot better with an iPhone 7, now even if you don't have an iphone 7 plus, a lot of the tricks still apply. https://www.apple.com/iphone/photography-how-to/ 

7. Gmail Smart Reply, over the next coming weeks a new feature called Smart Reply is rolling out for Gmail on IOS,  depending on the text in the email, Gmail will make suggestions as to what to answer back as a response. https://blog.google/products/gmail/save-time-with-smart-reply-in-gmail/ currently available in English with more languages coming soon.

Tips and Tricks April 2017

This month is a pretty big list full of super useful tips and tricks.

First off, a huge update to Goole Apps happened during March Break, here are the a few new things.

New Google updates

1) Team Drives, you may have noticed team drives appearing in your Google Drive, these are brand new and the major difference is that instead of someone owning the folder and files, its the Team Drive that has ownership. In an environment with a large turnover of employees this could be useful but at Selwyn House its not a necessity.

2) Google Hangout is now Google Meet, awesome upgrade allowing easy meetings (up to 25 people), screen sharing, auto generated links right from Google Calendar (every event with invited guests has a link attached automatically). https://gsuite.google.com/products/meet/

3) Google Calendar now looks awesome on iPad.

20 Instant Google Searches, if typed correctly the answer appears above the results. http://www.controlaltachieve.com/2016/05/google-search-cards.html

Online Quiz Platforms

Their has been talk around about web based quiz systems, even if a plethora of systems exists I decided to highlight 5 of them, and they are all FREE.

1) Kahoot : Very popular, allows the whole class to answer a quiz in a gameshow sort of rapid fire way. Thousands of already made quizzes but you anyone can make them so some have been made by students and are not correct, you can check the ratings. Here is a tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mREu1WpDfDM

2) Quizizz: Similiar to Kahoot but individuallized so students go at their own pace. Here si a tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9f2_A6bNDA

3) Socrative: A quick quiz program, with individual assessment. Google Sign-in for easy access. Here is a tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upY8uG3NFfY

4) Go Formative: More complex but very powerful, allows you to upload existing quizes and add questions, also allows writing, drawing, etc... See the students work live as the quiz is happening, is compatible with Google Classroom and student Logins. Here is a tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIO1CmMjDQA

5) Google Forms: Most people don't know about the Quiz feature and you can actually invite students to collaborate and build the quiz. Here is a tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKIU5zcwS4A

Scale of the Universe http://scaleofuniverse.com/ a neat little Flash app, allows you to explore items by size from atoms all the way to galaxies. Thanks to Bob Bouskill for this Tip.

San Jose Innovation Tour

            *New Apple Park in Construction

Last week I had the opportunity of going to Silicon Valley, during that time we spent two days at Apple HQ and talked a lot about strategic planning as well as how to have meaningful discussions and meetings to solve a diversity of issues in our schools. One thing that was clear was what makes the Apple Culture different and that has to start with a new mindset.


One TED talk everyone should watch to better understand this new mindset is by Simon Sinek.
















He also has some good thoughts on millennials, which can also relate to our students.

We also visited the Standord D School, which specializes in the Design Thinking approach.

http://dschool.stanford.edu

You can take a crash course in design thinking on their website.

By pure luck, our admissions officer at Selwyn House put me in contact with her sister Audrey Warmuth who works at Saratoga High School. They have a great Makerspace, which combines a wood workshop, robotics, laser cutter, 3d printers....

I also got to play with devices known as iBeacons(Apple) or Eddystones(Google), I will have a bigger post on these at a later date but essentially wireless QR codes, interesting ideas like school tours, treasure hunts, Front desk applications...


We did a quick outdoor tour of the Googleplex,

I also ended up going to the Computer History Museum, a collection of some of the highlights of the last 2000 years of computing. From the first Apple Computer to original Supercomputers to today. A German enigma machine and a Google Self driving car.

Tech Tips March 2017

March Break is right around the corner, here are some good PD opportunities for those interested.

MOOC Innovator Mindset http://immooc.org/2017/02/27/immooc-live-episode-1-and-blog-prompts/

Google Educator Level 1 https://edutrainingcenter.withgoogle.com/certification_level1

New Tips and Tricks

Google Keep Now part of Gsuite, and available on all mobile and chrome browser. This pretty cool app allows you to quickly save notes, websites, images, reminders, to do lists ,etc... and keep them sync across all of your devices. It also can capture the text from any image and integrates with Google Docs super easily. Really worth a look. https://keep.google.com/#home

Insert Google Drive videos directly into Google Slides https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2017/02/insert-videos-from-google-drive-in.html?m=1

Remember to change the viewing permissions on the videos to anyone with the link.

Khan Academy now integrates with Google Classroom You can now import your Google Classroom roster directly into a Khan Academy course. https://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/157632001245/khan-academy-announces-roster-integration-for

Academic Google Extension and App List I found this great academic list of Extensions and Apps that has also a short description of each one. Its one two spreadsheet tabs at the top.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1H6UEQAqV6eZqd0DLt1NfuBtF33KYuQGVIItFGOwEyys/htmlview#

Add some Pizazz to Google Classroom and Forms with animated Headers 

http://badinerbytes.blogspot.ca/2017/02/google-classroom-animated-header.html?m=1

http://badinerbytes.blogspot.ca/2017/02/google-forms-animated-header.html?m=1

Tech Tips January 2017

1) Reminder Gmail and onCampus, create Contact groups automatically from onCampus. You can create groups for students and parents of specific classes.

https://youtu.be/B3ESOaDJusU

2) Chrome Broswer on IOS allow 2 cool features, 1) it has a built in QR Code reader now 2) You can Request Desktop Site for Gmail and be able to email contact groups. Here is a video

3) 360 tour of the White House, before Obama left office he had a studio create a tour of the white house in 360 degree.

https://www.facebook.com/ObamaWhiteHouse/videos/10155140995934238/-- 

4) Decoration/Learning ideas for your classes http://worlds-of-learning.com/2017/01/28/beyond-lego-walls/

5) Cool Gym class idea for K-Gr1-Gr 2 http://blog.airsquirrels.com/2017/01/gym-class-jitterbug-how-to-play-the-game-teachers-are-raving-about/ All you need is a projector and an iPad, you click on the bugs or bubbles when you see a lot of balls have hit them. The app they use is not available in canada but many similiar apps are.

Clair 2017

Du 26 au 28 Janvier, j'ai eu la chance avec une couple de collègue d'aller à la conférence de Clair. Ceci est la deuxième fois que j'ai le privilège d'aller munir avec les meilleurs pédagogues francophone d'amérique du nord.

http://clair2017.wikispaces.com/Accueil

Cette conférence au Centre d'apprentissage du Haut-Matawaska(cahm), est unique dans son genre, pour l'accueil chaleureux des bénévoles et personnel de l'école.

Un élément de Clair qui me marque à chaque fois est les performances des élèves autant artistique entre les différentes présentation que durant la visite des classes. Marylou Lang, compétitrice à la Voix junior et gradué du (cahm) à sue nous éblouir avec son talent.

Mais plusieurs autre élève incluant Jérémie, président du conseil d'élève qui nous à parler de l'importance des enseignants dans les vie des jeunes.

Les présentations ignite, donne 20 diapositive, à une intervalle de 20 seconde chaque, limitant le temps des présentations pour envoyer un message, idée, projet en rafale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kpYXU3FMGQ

Voici quelque exemple de ce qu'on a vue:

 Programmation en première et deuxième année en utilisant Osmos et les Robots Dash & Dot pour créer de la musique.

Un igloo formé de contenant de litre de lait vide, créé un coin de lecture dans la classe de Maternelle.

Cette année La Sphère de Radio-Canada à fait son émission live.

Mais les élèves aussi on fait une radio étudiante quand même. https://soundcloud.com/gauviroo/sets/entrevues-a-la-radio-des-jeunes-dacadiepedia-a-clair2017

La meilleure partie de Clair est la visite des classes et du labo créatif le Vendredi matin. Nous parlons directement au élèves et au enseignant et on reconnaît l'étincelle dans leur yeux quand il présente leur diverse projet et idée. J'ai eu la chance de parler avec Martine qui m'a expliqué son projet de recyclage ou elle et ces compagnons créer des décorations pour l'école à partir d'élément recycler. Mais aussi plein d'élément de création tel que les plantes qui produit des clips audio dans l'entrée avec un Makey Makey. Il y a aussi eu une petite présentation théâtrale avec une lumière "Blacklight", les élèves ont animé et fabriqué les personnages.

Notre gang de l'autobus Gagnon Express avant notre retour vers Montréal.