Headers That Move: The Missing Piece in Your Google Forms

WEBSITE ↬ Headers That Move: The Missing Piece in Your Google Forms

AUDIENCE ↬ teachers & admins

CONTENT ↬ all

GRADE LEVELS ↬ all grades

Ok, you have to check out this awesome guide from Tony Vincent on how to spruce up your Google Forms with custom headers! He walks you through exactly how to create eye-catching banners using tools like Canva and provides the perfect dimensions so your digital assignments look super professional. My favorite part is how it explains that Google automatically matches your theme colors to your image, making your forms look totally polished and fun with zero extra effort! 

HOW CAN TEACHERS USE THIS RESOURCE?

I can see teachers using this create more fun & engaging headers when they create Google Forms for surveys, class activities, or assessments. No need to be boring!

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A reading challenge for your classroom

WEBSITE ↬ A Reading Challenge for your classroom

AUDIENCE ↬ teachers & admins

CONTENT ↬ reading/ELA

GRADE LEVELS ↬ all grades

Are you looking for a tech-infused way to encourage reading in your class? How about a reading challenge that shows off the parameters you decide to challenge your students with ... whether it's number of pages, number of books, or something else. John Sowash has created and shared this reading challenge using Google Forms to collect and ultimately share this with your students, and possibly your families.  He even includes ready-to-go templates to help you get going. Thanks, John!

HOW CAN TEACHERS USE THIS RESOURCE?

I can see teachers using this to inspire and encourage their students to level up their reading in a friendly class challenge way. And since John has the templates ready-to-go, it makes it easy for teachers to get started with this immediately.

*** Every Monday, I share a newsletter with a collection of Tech You Can Do resources. Interested? Sign up here!  ***

Grading Forms in Google Classroom

WEBSITE ↬ Grading Forms in Google Classroom
AUDIENCE ↬ teachers

CONTENT ↬ any/all

GRADE LEVELS ↬ any/all

As much as I love Google Forms, their typical use in Google Classroom is simply to be an assessment (or survey) tool, rather than a means to allow the back & forth between teacher & student. 

Last year I had a teacher embark on the ability to use Forms TO assess, but also give his students feedback. NOT an easy task! It took a bit for us to work through, and I received his permission to use our experience to share with others. The result is this: "Grading Forms in Classroom". 

I've had numerous requests for help with this process recently, as teachers have been embarking on different ways to teach & provide feedback to their students. There are very specific settings that require this to work ... BUT IT DOES!

If you get stuck - or have questions - feel free to reach out! I'd be happy to help.

Day 15: Templates for Teachers

Templates for Teachers [LINK]

My last share of these 15 days is a very personal one. My colleague & friend, Beth Kingsley  (@bethkingsley13) & I created this site. We very much enjoy creating templates for activities that can be used in any classroom. This site is built from a love of teaching and learning. Please feel free to click on any of our templates, preview them and then click the "Use Template" to make it your own. You are welcome to modify as needed. Our hope is that you find something here that can serve you and or your students soon!

We will be working over the next several weeks to provide a better organization to the site ... so for now, please scroll through. We look at this site as a work-in-progress for sure! There is even a place for you to submit a request for a template we can create & share. We 💖 this stuff!

We have templates for:

• newsletters
• class award certificates
• magazine covers
• "Who Was ...?" books
• holiday themed activities
• digital badges
• "Who Would Win?"
• social media
• lesson plans

. . . . and more!

Finally, we are excited to announce we will be presenting at OETC (the Ohio Educational Technology Conference) on February 14. We'd love to see you there! We will spend some time sharing our site and then dive into "how" we create what we do, then provide some time for you to create!


Please click HERE for the collection of all 15 resources.

Day 8: Applied Digital Skills

Applied Digital Skills [LINK]

If you've read even a few of my entries, you know that I love Google. I use it all day every day. I can't say enough how much I love it.  About 2 years ago, I learned about Google's Applied Digital Skills program. Another incredible program from Google!! 

Here's my summary - as a teacher, you are given a Google account, as are your students. Google Docs is fairly simple to get up and going with ... Slides, while more involved, still fairly simple. You get rolling with these two and you think you are flying high. Then you hear others talking about Google Calendar and then Google Sheets and don't forget about creating your own Site!?! The list goes on and on. How do you incorporate all of these? How do you teach your students when you don't know these apps yourself? 

Introducing ...... Applied Digital Skills!!! 

Pre-created project based curriculum from Google. Lesson plans and a platform to work with are part of the package. And to make it better, Google includes short instructional videos ... FOR THE STUDENTS ... to watch and learn. Seriously. (Can I tell you it is my dream to work for Google?!) 

The website is very teacher friendly. Click on the teacher tab and you are provided the steps to get started. The curriculum tab allows you to search their ever growing collection of projects by Audience (the "who" you'd do the project with); Apps (the Google application you want to dig in to or cover); and/or Topics (the skills you are wanting to cover). 

Please don't limit your thinking that you have to be tech teacher to utilize this curriculum. There is no limit on the content areas that can benefit. And even though Google deems their youngest audience to be late elementary, don't feel like younger elementary "can't". It will take a bit more work and some modification of expectations, but it CAN be done with younger students. 

Another winner from Google! Check it out today.

Please click HERE for the collection of all 15 resources.

Day 2: Locked Quizzes & more!

Locked Quizzes & more! [LINK]

Google has been teasing us about the ability to "lock" a Google Form for the past several months. Many teacher friends have been asking for this and it's finally here. (Kind of - read further into the tips section ... )

Let's go through some pedagogy - YES! It'd be ideal to create all of your assessments to be questions that your students can't "Google" ... however, in reality, there are times where a teacher wants/needs to have the ability to focus students on doing the test in front of them. This new tool will allow teachers to do just that.

As a bonus in the same article, Google announces they are improving their Gradebook in Google Classroom. Looking at the GIF (I'm a #hardG kinda gal), I'm super excited at the new layout! Seeing multiple assignments in columns all the way across the page will help teachers see with a glance at large amounts of work. Yea!

A few tips:

• currently, you need to sign up for the beta testing for both the locked quizzes and the new gradebook - please double check with your GSuite Admin to ensure they are on the same page

• it will only work on chromebooks managed by your domain (meaning your school has to be able to manage what does/doesn't go on)

• this is NOT going to stop cheating! Cheating happened long before computers ... 

• the gradebook feature gives Google Classroom the look of a more traditional gradebook, but don't let that fool you ... it is NO traditional gradebook! Grading categories, your entire class at a glance, a complete picture of single student, and more. 

Bottom line on this one - you'll have to sign up and give each of these a go to really test them out. But both are wins to me!

Please click HERE for the collection of all 15 resources.

*Google Forms Update! Woot! Woot!

The day has come ... rejoice!!! If you are like me & you've been hoping - one day - Forms will allow you more control over the font of your Form and the colors of the Form ... the day has come!!!! G Suite users will soon (if not already available in your account) be able to do all of these things.

Click HERE to read the official announcement from G Suite.


Click HERE to go directly to the Docs Editor Help page which explains the "how to" do all these things.

Woot! Woot!

An Intro to Google Forms

HELP DOC → An Intro to Google Forms

Forms is your answer to the collection of data of all shapes and sizes. Forms will neatly organize and display data for easy analyzation.