Generate leveled Resources with this AI app: Diffit

Have you tried the new AI app called Diffit.

I love it—you can take primary sources that you find on the internet, paste in the URL and the program will generate the source with questions, both multiple choice and short answer. 

You can adjust the length of the source. If it looks too long, just click "shorten."  Once you're satisfied, you can open it in google docs. 

You can also adjust the level of reading. Some primary sources are just too long for our kids, so the "shorten" function really helps.

Another useful function is the ability to generate the source by grade level.

Here is a short clip about the app.

How I keep my students informed about schedule changes when school is closed

We've missed lots of school because of the blizzard, which means that I've had to make changes to my schedule.  How do I inform my students of these changes?  It's easy if you use these tools.

My official class schedule is on Google Calendar.

I put a link to that calendar as a tab ("Assignment Calendar") on my class Blackboard page.

Before I had settled on Google Calendar I had tried to use the calendar on a previous version of Blackboard.  That Blackboard version was far inferior because it would not allow for events to have start times.  In appears that the newest version my district uses solves that problem, but for now I'm going to stick with Google Calendar.

When I need to make changes to our schedule I just make them in Google Calendar, and the changes appear for my students when they check the Assignment Calendar on Blackboard.

To inform my students about these changes I use these three tools:

1st: I post an Announcement in Blackboard that I have updated the Assignment Calendar.  Blackboard then gives me the option to email that Announcement immediately to my students.

2nd: I use Remind to send a text message alert about the changes.  I really like Remind because I can send the text immediately, or schedule it for a later time.  (This is especially good if I'm working at odd hours; I don't want their phone to beep or buzz too early or too late with a text from their teacher!)

3rd: I update the changes on the WhatsDue app.  WhatsDue creates a class calendar for my students that resides on the app on their devices.  Any change I make automatically generates a text alert to my students.  I like WhatsDue because students can use it to send themselves text reminders of upcoming due dates and deadlines.

Watch Your State Legislature Live

In Virginia we have to teach state and local government in addition to the US government.  Well what we call the General Assembly (used to be called the House of Burgesses) is the longest serving legislature in the world dating back to 1619.  If you want to see them live during their sessions (which are occurring now until mid March) you can go here.  If you Google your state legislature and type "live stream" into the search you can find yours.

Above is a short video explaining the Virginia General Assembly

Google Drive Tutorial

This is a nice overview of Google Drive and its power.  If you are like me, you have almost completely (I recently found my first use for Microsoft Word in the last year).  The video above shows you many of the highlights and how to use them in just a few minutes.

You can find technology tips you can use in the classroom on my new blog called eLearning Blog which is designed for students, teachers and administrators who want to learn using technology. 

Best Websites for Teaching and Learning 2015

Right now there are about 1-billion websites, give or take 50-million.  Which ones are most engaging and rewarding for our students?  Thankfully, a highly-respected authority has already done the scouting for us.

The American Association of School Librarians publishes an annual list of its best websites for teaching and learning.  The sites it recognizes

foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration.  They are free, web-based sites that are user friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. 

One particularly cool website on the list is called WhatWasThere.  That site uses Google Maps to explore what a location used to look like.  I used the site to compare one intersection near my home.  It displayed a photo taken during the 1860s with a Google Street View of what the intersection looks like now.  It was fascinating to compare the two.  WhatWasThere also offers an accompanying iPhone app.

All told, this year's AASL list has 25 sites on it.  With a list that comprehensive it's hard to know where to start.  But by focusing on just one new site per week we would be able to introduce our students to a new type of engagement weekly, almost until the end of this school year.

A free app that nicely complements Remind.com

I use Remind with my students and I love it.

Remind creates a whole new communication stream with my students that transcends the 90 minutes we have face-to-face with each other every other day.  When I send them a text message I know that they received it on their phone instantly.

I use it sparingly, however.  I want my students to be responsible to check our class Assignment Calendar (a Google Calendar linked from our class Blackboard site) on their own initiative.  For that reason I use Remind only to announce that I've posted a new assignment, or have made changes to previously-posted assignment deadlines.

The consequence of my policy is completely foreseeable: Students forget (or neglect) to check the Calendar, and consequently forget that they have a project due at the end of the week or a quiz tomorrow.

The ideal solution would be to push to the students the obligation of monitoring their due dates using a more efficient and effective platform.  The WhatsDue app just might be that ideal solution.

WhatsDue is a free app for students (and their parents).  WhatsDue lets teachers create a to-do list of upcoming due dates that students can access from their devices.

Teachers register with WhatsDue and share a join-code for each class with their students and parents.  From the teacher dashboard, they then record each assignment and when it is due.

Registered users then get push notifications of upcoming due dates that are added to a clear display on their devices.  This picture shows an example of how that looks:

In this example, the student has six assignments due.  One (the Homework to "Do Assignment 3") is marked in red because it is due tomorrow.  The other assignments are listed in the order in which they are due.

I'll keep using Remind to alert my students to schedule changes.  But WhatsApp seems to go further in helping my students manage their assignments than simply using Remind alone, so I'm going to roll this out on the first day back from winter break.  Even better: Could you imagine how cool it would be if all teachers throughout your building used WhatsDue?  I'll work on promoting that as well.

Personalized Urls

We normally start my classes with a five question quiz where my students can use their notes from their flipped video to answer the questions.  It serves a few purposes.  First I won't count the quiz grade if the notes aren't good enough as I want the kids to have a repository they can use later (which is easy with the search function in Google Drive).  Secondly the questions are the main points for the day so it tells the kids what their exercise is going to be about.

But to the point.  I very rarely use the LCD in my classroom other than for when I am giving our opening quiz.  But the other day the my LCD lightbulb went kaput.  So I had to improvise by taking the url from the Google Drive document into a Tinyurl which I also personalized.  For example I am doing the fifth and sixth units in my for AP microeconomics called tinyurl.com/apmicro56.  So I wrote the url on the board and didn't worry that we didn't have a LCD.  It also is nice when kids want to redo a quiz, I just give them the url and we are all set.

In addition there is bitly.com that allows you to keep a repository or your shortenings as well as Google's shortening.  

Tweeting the Democratic Debate

I am teaming with several other teachers in my county on October 14th to have our students Tweet the Democratic debate at 9 pm on CNN.  Here is how we do it:

• We pick a hashtag which our students include in every post.  It can be as simple as #schoolnamegovclass.  Here is what we used last year (but aren't using Tuesday). 
• We require the students to make three comments during the debate and tell them that school rules apply (ie language, etc.).   Our kids like to see that we are trending so they do far more comments (20-30) and stick around the entire debate.  Our kids then have to take screenshots of their 3 comments and share in a Google Drive document.
• The teachers teach!  This means you might say that some candidates are already running very low on funds or that the polls are great, but the goal is to win delegates. Having more than one teacher in on the debate makes for a richer discussion.  
• I use TweetChat (which can be synced to your Twitter account) so I can see the comments from the other students and easily enter in my own. Assume the kids can see all of the comments and know how to follow the discussion.  I also usually watch the debate/State of the Union on my laptop as well and split my screen as you can see from the video above.  
• What about the kids who don't have Twitter!  I generally use an editable Google Drive document, but one option I am using TodaysMeet which lets you set up a Twitter like screen that does not require a login/password.  We used it for the Republican debate and it was awesome and much better than using an editable document from Google Drive. 

We find that the kids have a dynamic discussion during the debates (or the State of the Union) and can't pull themselves away from the screen (big or small).  

How to Prepare for a Test

My mom asked me the other day where I get all of my ideas and sites for the blogs.  I told her that I basically just teach and search for answers to all of my questions.  For example the other day a friend asked me for help with her daughter's studying ability.

I actually always start this kind of an answer with asking if the student writes a study guide.  Most of the time, the answer is no.  Bu as I have now come to require my students to fill in one before each summative assessment, I have found that is where most end.   Given no study guide, most, would do nothing.  Given a study guide the most kids do is read them over and hope for the best on the items they don't know.  This is contrary to my kids who insist on us quizzing them repeatedly for days, which is exactly what the research suggests is best.  said she suffered from test anxiety.  She admitted that she never did more than review her notes to which I asked if she wasn't fulfilling her prophesy in that she was taking the easy way out by reading, but not studying and then blaming her low scores on the imagined anxiety.  I asked her if she had every varied her approach to prepare and the answer was,

For this year and last I have made a conscious effort to discuss what is meant by studying - even modeling it repeatedly with my non AP classes.  But here is a list of 22 different ideas to think and perhaps even share some of them with your students such as

• quizzing one's self (I love Quizlet)
• studying for multiple days
• studying in different parts of the house
• using different memory devices such as songs and story telling
• writing it out
• taking breaks and more

The video above echoes many of the points above, but also how to reduce anxiety in a test.

• In addition to requiring study guides and 
• giving them the Quizlet links for a particular subject (you can just do a search on the site and say something like "Regents WHI China" and someone has put together a pretty good group of cards. 
• I tell them about Google Hangouts so they can quiz their friends and not have to worry about getting together.  They can be done on any device and allow you share your screen.
• or use FreeConferenceCall.com which allows students up to 999 other participants in a group call
• or even the old fashioned meeting someone in person!

FRQ Grade Converter

We give a number of FRQs and so, thanks to Rich Hoppock and Dan Maxwell whom I team with for both economics and government, we have a nice converter.  To use it, download it and then upload it into your own Google Drive account, or if you don't have one, open it up in Microsoft Excel.  Then plug in the number you want and it will give a grade percentage. 

Make Videos with WeVideo

One of our special education teachers made the video above using WeVideo.  First off I should say we flip for not just mainstreamed students, but also special ed and ESOL (ESL) students.

WeVideo is an app that you can add in Google Drive or sign up for separately.  As with everything else here, it is free and pretty amazing as it lets you add in sound, video, words, effects, etc.  Best of all, you can use it with your students in groups as it lets them collaborate much as one can do on a document in Google Drive.

Below is an introductory video on WeVideo and here are all their (short) tutorials

New Voice Typing with Google Docs

It takes a bit of getting used to, but you can say things like "new paragraph," or "exclamation" and it will do them in addition to regular old typing on your Google Drive documents.  I found this on Google+ from Carlos Guerrrevo. 

Grading and Returning Student Work in Google Classroom

I am going to be testing Google Classroom this year so will be putting tutorials in how to use it this year.  Above is a great video I found on the International Educators IT Leadership and Integration page on Facebook.   The video takes you through all of the grading steps and options.  

Doodle for Scheduling Meetings

Last week I used Doodle to figure out when my department should have its fall party.   Our count's online teachers also use it to determine what time is best for our weekly chats with students.  The great thing is that you do not need to join, but do need to give them an email.

By the way I have a junk email that I use when signing up for new things out there to make sure I like them (since you can always change your email later).  This helps to cut down on the emails you receive and don't really want.

Doodle sends a link (such as this one my department used) which allows users to identify themselves and then to select a time that would be useful.  It certainly is much easier than sending a bunch of emails and quicker than creating a Google Drive form.  

Tweeting the Republican Debate - How to do it

I am teaming with several other teachers in my county on September 16th to have our students Tweet the Republican debate at 8 pm on CNN.  Here is how we do it:

• We pick a hashtag which our students include in every post.  It can be as simple as #schoolnamegovclass.  Here is what we used last year (but aren't using Wednesday). 
• We require the students to make three comments during the debate and tell them that school rules apply (ie language, etc.).   Our kids like to see that we are trending so they do far more comments (20-30) and stick around the entire debate.  Our kids then have to take screenshots of their 3 comments and share in a Google Drive document.
• The teachers teach!  This means you might say that some candidates (Rick Perry, for ex.) are already running very low on funds or that the polls are great, but the goal is to win delegates. Having more than one teacher in on the debate makes for a richer discussion.  
• I use TweetChat (which can be synced to your Twitter account) so I can see the comments from the other students and easily enter in my own. Assume the kids can see all of the comments and know how to follow the discussion.  I also usually watch the debate/State of the Union on my laptop as well and split my screen as you can see from the video above.  
• What about the kids who don't have Twitter!  I generally use an editable Google Drive document, but one option I am considering for next week is TodaysMeet which lets you set up a Twitter like screen that does not require a login/password.  

We find that the kids have a dynamic discussion during the debates (or the State of the Union) and can't pull themselves away from the screen (big or small).  

Rewordify to Simplify Readings

In my World History I ESOL classes I have usually have 25 kids who have been in the US less than four years and half who have been here just two years of fewer.  So one thing I use is Google Translate when I am trying to get them to learn to write (they write in their native language and then translate it to English as the writing part is more important than the English part).  But there are also lots of words or even combination of words that make it tough to read a textbook or newspaper.  So for those (if they are done electronically), one option is to use Rewordify which literally simplifies what one is reading.  

Tips to Teach Your Students in Their Online World

This coming Wednesday September 2nd I am going to try to get through a number of items in a one hour presentation at the FCPS Social Studies in-service during sessions A and B in room 447.  I'll let the teachers decide where to start and then if don't finish everything, they (or you) can have this post to learn the rest.  The goal is to meet your students in their world - online!  We will look at:

• how to create a video either for a flipped class.  The video below explains the process and here is a more detailed one. 

• how to create a YouTube play list for one's flipped videos - be they your own or others.

• how to use Twitter for class warm-ups and discussions. Below is a video on how you can follow a hashtag using TweetChat.  Here is what it looks like to be in a live hashtag discussion that we used on our government classes last year.  

• how to catch cheating in Google Drive.  Here is an extended post on how to do it and below is a video. 
  
  

• how to use Quizlet for student review.  Its power was proven to me when my own children found it on their own and started using it to prepare for assessments.  The video below shows you the amazing features, from traditional flash cards to a multitude of games.  Here is how you can make a Quizlet set of questions.  Honestly I rarely make my own, but rather do a search and find one that suits my students and give the link to them.  

• how to use Blackboard Collaborate on snow days for my AP students and below is a video explaining the few features you need to know as a teacher to run such a class.  If your district has access to it, it only takes 30 seconds to make you a shell.  If you don't then here are alternatives you could consider using for free on a snow day.  Below is a very informative video on all the tools you might want to use for snow day sessions or evening reviews.
  

Catching Cheating Using Google Drive

Now that Google Classroom is finally getting better than using Google Drive, I will tell you how to catch cheating in Google Classroom later in the fall, but for now if your students turn in assignments using Google Drive below is a very quick video showing how to catch copying in your class and between sections of different teachers.  Of course, most just copy from the internet which means you only have to copy a short questionable portion and put it in a Google search which is almost as effective and a lot cheaper than things like Turnitin.com.  If you are in Fairfax County, I am doing two technology in-services at our social studies in-service gathering on Wednesday September 2nd in room 447 at West Potomac H.S. during sesions A and B.

Google Classroom

Until recently I was not convinced that Google Classroom was any better than Google Drive.  But Google recently announced that you can now add apps on it and one might assume that it is going to get better.  The best part is that the students can see the due date and you can share either a link or anything you have in Google Drive (be it your Google Apps for Education or your personal account). Above is a video showing how to set up the classroom and here is the help center.  Look for me to have more videos and tips on Google 's Chromebook and the Google Classroom as we move into the fall.

Below is how you can add items from the web to Google Classroom. 

Diigo for Bookmarking and Class Groups

Long ago I stopped putting my bookmarks on Explorer, Chrome, etc. as I didn't not want to be married to one laptop.  Think about it.  Your school laptop is re-imaged probably once a year and each time you have your bookmarks deleted.  There is a way you can suck in your Chrome, Mozilla or Explorer So Diigo is a great way to save your bookmarks on the cloud.  You can set up your own account or login using Google, Twitter, Facebook or Yahoo.

Below this is a video explaining how to sign up and above is one showing how you can use groups in a class.   If you use it with your students they do not have to have a Diigo account nor even share their email (although that allow them to be updated with alerts).