Technology Tips

This past week I attended InnEdCO.  It is Innovation, Education, Colorado and used to be known as TIE (Technology In Education) and it is for Colorado educators by Colorado educators. It was a wonderful conference. I have not attended for several years and I was so happy to go back. I want to teach you a little bit of what I learned. A three day conference could make for a VERY long blog post so I will just highlight a little bit of it!

Google Forms:

If you are like me, I see google forms everywhere used for everything, in the classroom out of the classroom etc. I was not sure how to dress them up before the conference and now I know what all they are capable of!

1. You need a google account.
2. From your google drive you will choose new and then scroll to more and forms is the first option there.

3. Next you can change the setting of who can view the form at the top. If you want it public on the web you will uncheck everything. 

4. Fill in your questions and add photos or youtube videos. If you want a personal video you need to upload it to youtube and then use that url. You can add graphs and tables too. You can select the option from advanced settings. 

5. Dress it up by adding a theme. You will go to the top and change the theme. 

6. Once you select customize you can add your own image on top, change the font and font color. 

7. There are several add ons that you can use to make your teaching life easier. My favorite is Flubaroo. This add one will grade the google form for you. From your drive you will choose the responses of the google form. This will be a spread sheet. You will choose an add on from the top. It will prompt you to use one as an answer sheet. You should do the form yourself and use that as an answer key. Then it will grade for you! One teacher at the conference said she forwards the scores to the parents by email. They use forms and Flubaroo for their spelling tests. 

I hope you feel like you can use forms better in your classroom! 

I also learned about Class Flow. This website will unite any device into one classroom. You can create different surveys with different types of questions. It is a live class and could be used for tests and classes. I thought it was really neat because it works with any device for any student. 

The last thing I wanted to share with you is the Level It Books App. This app allows you to scan books barcode and it gives you the reading level. That way students can choose books that are right on their level. 

I really look forward to using all of this technology in my classroom! I hope you are able to use some of these tips too!