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Weekly Tech Tips 4 October 2020

 Dear Friends,


I hope your Chuseok was peaceful and restful and beautiful. I know I got a much needed recharge. Here’s hoping it lasts a while.

This week I hope to convince you (if you are not already) that as educators we are on the cusp of a revolution in our field as indeed is society as a whole. Now is the time to start enacting those decades-old buzzwords we’ve been hearing and using for so long. Words like, student-centered, student choice, research-based, social emotional learning, differentiated learning, transformational learning, growth mindset and all the rest that we all love to hear at conferences. Those words that get us all fired up and make us warm and fuzzy for a few hours until we get back in the classroom where the pressures of a fixed and prescribed curriculum force us to fly through content chosen by people far away as fast and painlessly as possible. I hope to inspire you with ideas from educators around the world who see change coming fast. I hope to recruit you to this cause and I hope to support you in seeing it through to its inevitable implementation.


“I’m mad! And I’m getting on my soapbox today in defense of teachers.The state of education right now is maddening and unfair to teachers and students.Let’s work together to break old ideas and mindsets and reinvent education for a post-COVID world.”

Kasey Bell


Kasey Bell is a generous and prolific educator and teacher trainer. She is the creator of the Shake Up Learning website, book series, blog and podcast. She is also a follower of Christ I was pleasantly surprised to recently learn. She has tons of free beautiful materials on edtech and GfE. I highly recommend her short article from whence the quote above was taken:

https://shakeuplearning.com/blog/5-shifts-we-need-in-education-now-suls082/?ck_subscriber_id=148963833


In case you have forgotten what Professional Development looks like, here is an eye-opening quiz from EdWeek about current opinions on Professional Development in the US. They want your contact info in order to show you your results, but you can see my results with the correct answers at the end of this newsletter.

https://bit.ly/3jVPuqX

Weekly Tech Tips


Google Applied Digital Skills for Social Studies and Language Arts

Premade lessons that simultaneously teach valuable digital skills. 

I really enjoy teaching my students how to use spreadsheets whenever I can. I feel like I am giving them something truly valuable when I teach them to use a statistical function or autofill a column. I love to see their eyes pop out when I autofill a function and have the program compute dozens or even hundreds of values in a fraction of a second. A few years ago I showed this to a senior doing her math IA. She was floored. I had just shown her how to save hours of time. I don't know who was more incredulous. She that this tool existed or I that she didn’t know that this tool existed. I think we often assume that since our kids are so good with video games, social media and texting that they are also great at using productivity tools. This is not true. Both my own experience and research has borne this out. 

https://www.educationdive.com/news/students-show-low-to-medium-tech-skills/566498/

Now I introduce spreadsheets in the 8th grade and in both my science and math classes. I know first hand how important it is to be able to use them in almost any career from engineering to business to linguistics research. It is relatively easy to do in science and math, but the link above provides lessons in Language Arts and Social Studies that simultaneously teach useful digital skills.


This Week’s Apps and Resources


Some new features for Google Docs


Google Docs now has two new tools. There is the Compare tool (which is actually still marked New) but also the Citation tool which is new but is not marked New. Good ways to keep track of changes and versions and make referencing easier.



Google Forms

This particular resource has several short tutorials on how to do specific things with forms, like make a branching survey or quiz. I have made such a survey here:

https://forms.gle/tLkBfGTTzexgroBy8

Please take the time to fill in this survey to both see how a branching form works on the user end and to help me gauge interest in GfE training. Imagine the things you can do in terms of student choice and lesson differentiation with this feature. It is also a great way to scaffold with specific error correction.


I hope you have seen the hope in this week’s edition of Weekly Tech Tips. I hope you have picked up on the hope of real change and that it has resonated with you. I truly believe that it is coming whether we want it to or not, and I for one think it is high time it does. I will be back next week and the week after that and the week after that to help sustain you and support you. 

I am available during homeroom time especially on Fridays to help you figure out any Edtech questions you may have.


Vive la Révolution!

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