Chrome Extensions for Educators

One feature that makes the Chrome web browser so powerful is the ability to add extensions. You can find extensions in the Chrome Web Store. They are easily installed with a one button click. Below you will find a list of Chrome Extensions that you can start using right away.

Adblock for Youtube
I was recently observing a lesson by another teacher which used a video from Youtube. Unfortunately, a video ad played first. This extension will solve that problem. It eliminates all video ads from Youtube and allows you to only show the content you intended.

Adblock

This is the first extension that I install on any web browser because it is so helpful. It blocks the ads on any web page. In addition and also keeps pop ups from opening in a new window. Therefore you can browse the web without all of the annoying distractions.

Checker Plus for Google Calendar

One feature I miss from Outlook is desktop notifications. Luckily, there is a Chrome extension that adds this feature to the web browser. Once installed, you need to give the extension permission to access your calendar. Then you will start receiving notifications of your appointments. You can even add events quickly to your Google calendar.

Video Download Professional

Previously I have written about extensions for Firefox that allow you to download videos for YouTube. I was not aware that the same kind of extension existed for Google Chrome. But this is an extension for Chrome that lets you download a YouTube video and save it to your hard drive. When watching a video, the extension icon changes to a green download arrow. Click on the arrow and choose "add video to video list" and then chose "show video list." From the video list you can download a copy of the video to your hard drive.

Pocket
See something on the web that you want to save for later? Pocket is the extension for you. You can save articles, videos, images, etc. to view later. A great feature of Pocket is it syncs across all web browsers and devices.

Awesome screenshot
We all need to create quick screenshots from time to time. This Chrome extension lets you take a screen shot and edit it all within your browser. You can even save the images to Google Drive.

Picmonkey
This extension lets you grab images from any webpage and instantly begin editing them. Or, using the Chrome app, you can edit pictures from your hard drive. Picmonkey has all of the features you need to quickly edit and share images from the web.

Onetab
Open tabs in Chrome can use up a lot of memory. This extension converts all of the open tabs into a list. You can then open the tabs one at a time or all at once when you need them.

Black Menu for Google
Miss that black bar with all of your Google apps? This extension gives you a one click access to all of your Google services. A great feature of this extension is that you can use it from any webpage.

Split Screen
Ever wanted to have two web pages open in a single window? This extension allows you to type in two URLs and have then open in the same tab. Great viewing assignments and then entering grades into an online grade book.

Clearly
Sometimes you just want to read an article on a webpage and remove all of the distractions. The Clearly extension removes all extra content from a webpage and presents the article in clean, easy-to-read format. If you are an Evernote user, you can also clip the page to your Evernote account.

Now its your turn to supercharge your Chrome web browser. Choose one extension that fits your needs and install it today. Leave any extensions that you love and I forgot to mention in the comments.

Getting Started with Google Drive

Install the Desktop Application

The beauty of Google Drive is your files do not have to only exist on the web. By installing Google Drive for Windows or Mac, you can access your files on your computer without having to open a web browser. The application creates a Google Drive folder on your computer that syncs any files put into it to your web account. This allows you to have drag and drop capabilities for your files. Any changes you make to a file in Google Drive are immediately synced to the web and any computer that has the desktop application installed. In addition, anything you add to a shared folder is immediately updated to all other users who have access to the folder.

Create and Share a New Folder

This is perhaps the easiest thing you can do. Login to the web version of Google Drive. Click on the folder icon with the plus sign and give the folder a name. Then right click on the new folder you created and add the email addresses of the people you want to share the folder with. Each of the recipients will receive an email notifying them that you have shared the folder. Initially the folder will show up in the "Shared with me" drop-down menu. Each recipient can make sure the shared folder shows up in their own drive by clicking on the shared folder and selecting the "Add to my drive" button.

Create Something

Google Drive also includes Google's full office suite. This includes a word processing application, a spreadsheet creator, a presentation tool, a form creator, and drawing tool. You can immediately begin creating an office document without needing to open Microsoft's Office Suite. Once the document is created you can work on it wherever you have an internet connection. Documents can be shared with others and can be edited by more than one person- even at the same time.

Experiment

Finally, take time to experiment and discover new features yourself. Google Drive is a pretty powerful online environment that Google is constantly updating and adding features to. If you are looking for other things to try you can visit this website and try some of the tips and tricks mentioned.

Starting the Year Off Right: Parent Communication

Consistent and relevant parent communication is essential for a good school year. Luckily, there are many great tools that make communicating with parents relatively easy. First, Remind101 provides a free and safe way for teachers to communicate with students and parents. After signing up for a free account, you create your classes. Remind101 then  provides you with a phone number and a separate code for each class. Parents and students simply send a text message with the code to the number given by Remind101. They are then subscribed to any messages you send out for that class. Parents and students can also signup for email updates, but this is not as obvious. If you click on the print button on the left hand side of the screen, it will create a PDF with the instructions for signing up for text messages and email messages. Now you are ready to send out alerts to parents and students. Just click on a class, type a message, and then hit send. It is blasted out to everyone who is subscribed. You can even tweet the message to a class Twitter account.

Google also provides tools that help with parent communication. Google Voice is a web service that allows you to create a phone number that anyone can call or text message. When parents call the number they can leave a message, when is then transcribed to text and sent to your email. This allows parents to contact you easily while maintaining your privacy. Gmail is also an excellent way to keep in contact with parents. At the beginning of the year, have parents provide you with an email address. Then create a contact list with the emails. Now you can send out messages to parents with one click of a button.

Class websites are an important tool for keeping parents informed. My school uses the free web service Schoolloop for our school website. I put up basic class information and I also post our class agenda online for any students who are absent.

A class blogger is another way to give parents a window on what is happening in the classroom. Each week assign one student to create a short blog post about what they learned that week. This way parents can check in and see what is happening in class from a student's perspective. This also provides accountability for the student whose turn it is to blog that week. Online blogging services for students like Kidblog make this easy.

In addition, learning management systems like Edmodo are an easy way to extend your class outside of its four walls. Students can help each other, ask questions, and even complete assignments from home. Edmodo also provides a code for parents so that they can stay involved with their child's online work.

Finally, and most importantly, don't pass up opportunities to meet with parents face-to-face. Technology can make you more available, but a live meeting makes you more personal.

Using TED talks and iTunes U to Develop Students' Listening Skills

One of the goals set out in the Common Core standards is to make students better and more discerning listeners. More specifically, the standards require students to "Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric" (CCRA.SL.3). This standard considered in isolation can appear daunting. Put in exaggerated terms, it would require a regular round of speakers invited into the classroom and/or a heavy dose of student presentations. Both of these options are important in developing students' listening skills, but neither can happen on a consistent enough basis to provide the repeated practice students need to master this standard. But students can receive a steady diet of engaging presentations through online resources like TED.com and iTunes U. In addition, when videos from these online resources are embedded into units focused on Big Ideas or Big Questions, students are motivated  to do the hard work it takes to delineate a speaker's reasoning and evaluate the speaker's point of view on a topic.

First, TED.com and iTunes U are both excellent repositories of video presentations on a wide range of topics from a diversity of speakers. TED.com is best for concise and polished presentations since each speaker is only allowed eighteen minutes to communicate a message, a format that forces each speaker to narrow the topic. Anyone can stream the video directly from the TED site or download it for offline use. There are many lists available online of TED videos that are good for classroom use. In the last year, TED.com has also developed TEDEd, which is a collection of short, captivating videos teachers can build lessons around. iTunes U is another source of videos for classroom use. As the name suggests, it requires iTunes to access the videos and is generally geared towards upper academic levels. But if you are teaching Night by Elie Wiesel, the interviews available here will definitely supplement your unit. Of course, Youtube deserves a mention, especially if your district has unblocked Youtube for schools.

Second, videos discovered in the ways described above are most effective when embedded into units that focus on a particular novel, theme, big idea, or big question. This gives students a reason to watch the video and do the hard work it takes to understand the message that is being communicated. In this way, the videos, along with the fiction and non-fiction being read in class, become another source for considering the big idea or theme of the unit. For more information about designing units based on big questions, I would recommend Jim Burke's book What's the Big Idea? The first chapter of the book can be found here.

This year I plan on incorporating more video into my big question units to provide my students with more opportunities to practice their listening skills and to provide captivating sources for considering answers to our collective questions. On a side note, I am still trying to develop a helpful graphic organizer for delineating and evaluating a speaker's point of view, so if anyone out there has some ideas, please let me know.

Postach.io: Blogging via Evernote

I am a huge Evernote fan and I find myself using it in more and more ways. I was excited to discover that I can use my Evernote account to create and post to a personal blog. The website Postach.io (yes that is the website's name) allows you to use your Evernote account as a blogging platform. Postach.io creates blog posts from notes in your Evernote account.

After signing up for a free account, you can start a new blog by clicking "Create New Site." You begin by creating a sub-domain, a title, author bio, and description for your new blog. The next step is to choose a notebook in your Evernote account to associate with your new website. By default, Postach.io creates a notebook entitled "Postach.io," but you can choose any notebook you desire. Notes within this notebook become blog posts when the tag "published" is added to the note. Finally, you can link various social accounts with Postach.io, enter a Google Analytics code, use Disqus for comments, identify if you want to use Markdown or not, and choose a theme for you blog.

Now your website is ready to go. Simply create notes within the notebook you chose and tag them "published" and they will appear on your site. Pretty much anything you can include in an Evernote note can be published on your blog. There are differences between the web, mobile, and desktop versions of Evernote, so you may find certain tasks and editing are easier on one platform compared to the other.

With so many tools out there, I try to consolidate as much as possible. While the blogging platform is simple, it gets the job done for me and makes my Evernote account that much more useful. If you have an Evernote account and have not started blogging, Postach.io may be the tool that gets you started.

Teaching Channel

This past weekend I attended the Fall CUE (Computer Using Educators) conference in the Bay Area. One of the sessions I participated in was on the topic of the Common Core Standards. One of the presenters mentioned an excellent online resource to help you and the teachers at your school prepare for the shift to the Common Core: Teaching Channel. The website is full of video lessons and tutorials along with the teacher handouts and resources mentioned in each video. In essence, it is a free professional development library totally devoted to the Common Core Standards.

If you click on any video, you are immediately taken to a separate page where you can view the lesson or tutorial of your choice. Along with the video player, each video lists the lesson objective, length, questions to consider, and the Common Core Standard related to the resource. Below the video player you will find any supporting materials mentioned and a discussion thread about the video. Currently users are not allowed to download videos, but you can share them via popular social networks, embed them on other websites, or send a link to the video through email.

One of the best features of Teaching Channel is the ability to sort the videos by subject, grade, and topic. As a middle school English Language Arts teacher, I was able to find fifty videos related to my subject and grade level. The videos range in length from two minutes for quick lesson tips or up to thirty minutes for larger topics.

Teaching Channel is a great resource for department collaboration time. The video lessons and tutorials are not presented in a "this-is-how-to-teach-it-correctly" tone, but instead are starters for discussion and fuel for your own ideas. If you are looking for a way to learn more about the Common Core or want to view lessons in action, visit this feature and content rich online professional development resource.

Quizlet: Creating Amazing Flashcards

Quizlet is a flashcard site that makes it easy to study any subject for free. This web tool allows a user to create a flashcard set for any subject and immediately begin studying terms and definitions. The power of Quizlet is how easy it is to create a flashcard set and the features available once the set is created.

To begin with, you don't even have to create an account to preview Quizlet's features. On the front page of the website you can test drive its features using one of the sample sets. The most basic mode allows the user to quickly flip through the terms and definitions and begin learning the content. Each set gives you the option of viewing the term first, or both sides at the same time if you are running through the cards for the first time.

But it is the other features that make Quizlet such a powerful tool for teachers and students. The first feature is a "Speller" mode, which allows the user to listen to a term and then type in the correct spelling. Next is the "Test' mode which assesses the users knowledge of the set with fill in the blank, multiple choice, or True and False formats. "Learn" mode is similar to "Speller" mode without the audio pronunciation. Finally, there are two game modes called "Scatter" and "Space Race." The first game scatters the terms and definitions across the screen and the user has to drag the correct term to its corresponding definition. The second game is a timed race where the user has to type in the term before the definition moves across the screen. The amazing thing is that all of these modes are available as soon as a set is created.

Creating a flashcard set is dead simple. Type the term in the first box and Quizlet will even offer to provide a list of definitions to choose from. Flashcard sets can be created in a variety of different languages and foreign language study is one of the top uses of the website. If you are studying a very common topic, such as SAT vocabulary prep, you search for sets created by other users. Frequently other users have already created a set for the topic that the user needs to master.

Quizlet has a few advanced features. You can add images to a flashcard set by searching through the free images available on the site, or you can upload your own images by signing up for a Plus account for fifteen dollars a year. Quizlet also allows you to create different classes and share flashcard sets with particular groups of students. User created sets can also be embedded on a website or blog.

I have used Quizlet for many years and I am constantly finding new uses for it. I have included a sample set I created for my students. So sign up for a free account and have fun creating flashcard sets for you or your students.