Awesome Google Updates - Classroom and Slides

Google Classroom Update

Great news....Google Classroom released a new feature last week in order to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week and give thanks to teachers all over the world. You will be happy to read that this update will enhance the use of Google Classroom with our students. You can now schedule all posts (announcements, assignments, and questions) in Google Classroom for a later date and/or specific time. This feature will provide a great opportunity for teachers who like to plan ahead and get organized for the week, month, unit, year, etc.

Coming Soon...

It is finally happening!!!! Next fall, Classroom will offer parent/guardian notifications in order to keep them in the loop with what is happening in your class.

Click here to learn more about the wonderful Google Classroom updates!

Google Slides Update - Q&A

Google just released a Q&A feature to use with Google Slides to give the viewers an opportunity to ask questions as they view a presentation. Slides Q&A is a back channel and provides a way to interact with audience members.

Click here to read more about these updates.

Wilson's #whatsup Tutorial 

YouTube Video

Classroom Fun - PBL Updates

Student: "Mrs. Wilson...can I conduct a social experiment in order to see what really makes people happy?"

Me: "Absolutely"

Student: "Really? Ok, good. I love this assignment."

Me: Smiling from ear to ear and thinking....that's #whatsup

We are about three weeks into our PBL project in my English II class, and it has been an interesting learning experience for me as a teacher to step back and let my students take ownership of their own learning. Due to other curriculum items and our reading of my favorite novel, The Great Gatsby, our PBL activity is something we do on a weekly basis. Every Monday, the students get the entire period in order to research, analyze, reflect, interview, and inquire what it means to be truly happy and how one can attain this happiness. As we near the end of the unit and school year, the students will take the information they collected and created from their Google + Collection and synthesize it in order to create an infographic that answers our driving questions. Although the first few weeks were slow, I am finally starting to witness my students taking ownership of their work and direction when it comes to this assignment.

One Student's Interview Questions

One great piece of evidence....my students's question listed above. In addition, students are writing questions and interviewing friends and family. Some students went to the lunchroom during class and interviewed over 10 students for their projects. Students then asked to create a video montage of responses in order to add to their Google + Collection. One student came in with a copious notes on her phone that she was typing into her Collection. When I asked what she was typing, she told me she talked to a bunch of different people over the past week in order to get their perspectives. True inquiry, creativity, and ownership. Wow...my students make me excited about the process and potential that come with a PBL activity.

On the other hand, some students do struggle with an open ended project. They want clear instructions. They want set guidelines. They are worried about points and how they can "lose" points if they don't do something a certain way. When they ask me a question and it is not answered directly, they struggle to comprehend that they are in the driver's seat when it comes to their work with this assignment. This makes me sad, as it appears the students feel the only way they can think is if they comply with my expectations. While I think it is important to set some ground rules/expectations, I do believe that students should be allowed to be curious, ask their own questions, and use their interests in order to drive research. Yes, this can be time consuming and hard to fit into a jam packed curriculum, but don't we want our students to be critical thinkers? Curious? Creative? Collaborative? Problem solvers?

All of these skills are expectations in our curriculums and, more importantly, in the real world. I am seeing more and more that they need opportunities in the classroom environment to take ownership of their thinking and learning. And they need us to facilitate, motivate, and challenge their thinking.

I love my job! #whatsup

Here is my PBL Assignment sheet. If you are interested in seeing some of my students' work, please let me know. I will ask their permission to share their Google + Collections and final infographics.

My Trip to Google

Last week, I had the opportunity to go to Google Chicago to be a part of a Google Educator Group (GEG) leadership planning event. It was a wonderful day of learning, collaboration, and developing my PLN. In addition, I totally geeked out because it was my first trip to one of the Google offices. I am pretty sure that everyone knew I was excited as I continued to take selfie after selfie as I entered the building and walked throughout the illustrious working spaces. 78 pictures to be exact. #geek


Everything I imagined about the space at Google was pretty spot on. It is obvious that they practice what they preach when it comes to collaboration, creativity, and student-centered learning spaces. The space itself provided collaborative, comfortable places for the staff in multiple areas on every single floor. It was refreshing to see a variety of people working in different chairs, couches, standing desks, cubicles, and meeting rooms as I toured the building. In addition, interesting and unique art decorated the walls of Google Chicago and highlighted the beautiful city that we call home.  It would be impossible for anyone to forget where they are with the amount of Google logos around the building, but each one was decorated a bit different in order to draw your attention to take a closer look. In addition, the outer walls of Google are all glass, so the city of Chicago was on display at every turn.  While Google's employees were all hard at work, it was obvious that they felt at home in all areas of the building. I felt at home on our floor during the planning event and inspired by the vibrant space, platforms for creativity, and passion from the other GEG educators. 

The day itself flew by as the GEG worked together in order to plan events for other educators in the Chicagoland area. Although the meeting itself focused on leadership for instructional technology use, our best work came from collaboration with one another, sticky notes, revision, combination of ideas, and the excitement of members. Like myself, the teachers and tech coaches present at this meeting were more than excited due to the location of our meeting. Along with the enthusiasm about Google Chicago, my colleagues were genuinely thrilled to be joining forces to help other teachers, tech coaches, and administrators produce a student centered learning environment. The conversation never focused on the technology tools; instead, the dialogue focused on pedagogy and the most important part of education: the students. 



I left Google Chicago proud of the work we accomplished and excited about the upcoming events that were planned during our meeting to enhance and transform the classroom. More importantly, I felt thankful to be a teacher and to have the opportunity to meet other teachers who share the same passion for the profession. As I always say, it is amazing to see what happens when you get a group of passionate educators in a room to talk about teaching and learning...especially if that room is at Google! #whatsup 

Spring Break Shenanigans

One of the many perks of being a teacher is our wonderful, well deserved spring break. This year, my spring break is quite different than years past. It used to be all about me: sports, coaching, shopping, vacation, hanging out with friends, reading, and relaxing. The real deal. 

This year, spring break, just like my life, revolves around my one-year old son, Tyler. I am only half way through the week, and wow....words cannot express how thankful I am for the time I have with him and the love that continues to grow day by day. His innocence, passion, curiosity, and knowledge continue to amaze me, and I can truly say that I am enjoying every second of spring break: Every smile, cry, word, step, book, giggle, tantrum, and adventure we have together. It is also the real deal. 

My son's curiosity has been especially entertaining to watch, as he is always observing and learning from everything around him. While he can be instantly distracted from what he is doing, his innocence allows him to be genuinely curious about everything he sees, and in turn, he sincerely appreciates all of life's moments and is proud of himself when he completes a task independently. 

I find myself acting a little sillier, taking more chances, and enjoying more moments, as I am inspired by his energy and curiosity. I beam with pride as I watch him grow before my eyes and cannot imagine my life, or future spring breaks, without him. Being a mom is totally the real deal. 

#whatsup 

Ideas and Taking Action

My mind has been spinning with great ideas of how to improve my classroom. I am blessed with opportunities to attend conferences and collaborate with other talented, passionate educators, and these opportunities motivate me to take new steps in making my classroom student-centered. I recently joined a cohort for a Future Ready Teacher Leader Certificate through the EdTech Team. My excitement continues to grow each day as I continue to connect with more educators and learn from their experiences while also sharing my own. My mind continues to race with new ideas for my classroom, and I know it is up to me in order to take action and risks in the future. 

My first big step this year was revising my research project and turning it into an Inquiry project. While it took time, I am extremely happy with the process and my students' work. Will I do things differently next year? Yes...of course, but this will only make it more successful. The risk in changing the project was invigorating, and it provided an opportunity for my students to think creatively, analytically, and critically. They took ownership of their own research and writing, and this ownership was powerful to observe and facilitate. 

My next step is creating a Project Based Learning activity for our fourth and final unit. The unit focuses on aspirations and what it takes to pursue happiness. In addition, our anchor text is my all time favorite novel, The Great Gatsby. At this point, I am in the planning stages but look forward to creating a learning opportunity for my students in which they contemplate what it takes to attain happiness. The project will take place while we are reading, and each week I hope to give the students a day to research and share using some sort of digital platform. Google Collections is high on my list for a digital platform, as I have just started using it professional and personally in order to organize my ideas and share my learning. Potentially, students can research, question, reflect, create, and then post writing, links, images, questions, and videos in their collections. From there, they can share their reflections in our class Community, which will speak to a larger audience and provide an opportunity to learn and communicate with each another. I may also challenge my students to share their collections on Twitter or through another digital platform in order to expand their audience outside of our classroom. Obviously, the opportunities for learning are endless. 

Ideas will continue to come in...but it is my job to take action. Stay tuned as I continue to brainstorm, create, learn, reflect, and share throughout this process. #whatsup

The Power of Screencastify

Screencastify is a great video screen capture extension for Chrome that gives you the power to create videos for your classroom. Teachers can use Screencastify to flip their classrooms or share pertinent information with students and parents. Students can also use Screencastify to produce digital presentations. Screencastify is easy to use, and with one click, you can save your video to the Google Drive and YouTube.

Click here to install the extension and watch the included video in order to learn how to get and use Screencastify.

Parent Teacher Conference Slam

Wow...it is already December! As with any school year, time is flying by, and we are already gearing up for final exams. November was a crazy month due to numerous professional conferences, parent teacher conferences, and Thanksgiving; however, we did some great things at Neuqua Valley High School that I wanted to share. 

Parent teacher conferences can be a stressful time for teachers. While it is always wonderful to meet the students' parents, it can take time to properly prepare for each conference if a teacher plans to share student artifacts from class. In an effort to help save teachers some time, frustration, and stress, we sent out various tips and tricks in order to help teachers DOMINATE their parent teacher conferences in our Parent Teacher Conference Slam video series.

What is a slam you might ask? A slam is a quick, fun, and energetic tutorial of some sort of app, skill, or idea. The goal….learn something awesome and use it in order to make your life easier! SLAM!

Video #1: Searching the Google Drive  

Video #2: Using Google Forms = Student Ownership

Video #3: Navigating Google Spreadsheets

Video #4: Becoming a Chrome Ninja

Video #5: Creating a Timer