ThinkTank and NoteStar

Tis the season for research papers. These past few weeks I have seen almost every ELA teacher in the labs with their students. I have also seen reams and reams of paper being used to print research information. This is why I have chosen to re-post the February 21st post on ThinkTank and NoteStar.
Many times students will not know where to start or even know how to put their ideas together. Students will truly need some modeling before feeling comfortable with developing a topic for a report or project. ThinkTank will help support the students thinking and NoteStar will help the students stay organized without taking down a forest!

Hand in Homework - Electronically!

The science teachers at Maplewood shared a great idea that they learned at a conference with me and I want to share that idea with you. It is called a Turn It In form. This form allows for students to share the web address of their Google Document, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Wikispace or other web based assignment with their teacher. All the submissions to a teacher are compiled into a Google Spreadsheet that the teacher can sort.

The Google Form asks the students for their first name, last name, class hour, assignment name and the assignment link/web address. 

Want to create a Turn It In form? Click HERE to find step by step directions with pictures.

Benefits of this tool:

• Your email and Google Drive are not cluttered with student work shared with you using Google Folders
• You can sort the submissions by the student's name, class hour or assignment name.
• The submissions are time stamped so you'll know when a student hands in their homework. 
• As you assign more assignments you can add their names to the Turn It In form.

*Remember* 

• For this to work, the student has to make sure their assignment isn't marked as private. To make sure of this, when clicking the blue Share button in the top right corner in Google items to get the web address of the assignment, the students can then click "Change" to change the visibility of their assignment.

• The visibility option the students want to pick is Anyone with the Link. Click Save and then copy that new web address to put in the Turn It In form.

New Research Tool Inside Google Docs

Sarah and I are very excited about the new tool that Google has recently introduced!  It's a research tool inside of Google Docs.  It allows you to add pictures, quotes, and citations into Google Docs without leaving the page.  Once inside of a Google Doc click on Tools and then Research.  This will bring up a research pane on the right side of your screen.  In settings you can change what format your citations will be in (MLA, APA, or Chicago).  You can also filter what kind of images it search for you, all images or images that are free to use without copyright violations.  I think it's a great new tool for our students.  Check it out in the video below!

And the Answer Is!

https://jeopardylabs.com/

Higher Order Thinking (HOT) is something we all want to offer in our lessons. The Jeopardy Labs is a great tool to differentiate but yet offer HOTS to all students. When doing a research project most students just play the role of a hunter gatherer. Once they have gathered all the information needed they then just plop their findings into a presentation. Yes Jeopardy Labs is a presentation tool but it brings the students thinking to a higher level.The students are required to take the information and place it into a question format in their own words. It takes a higher level thinking to take facts and make questions out of them. The higher the student the higher the questions.

No account is required but a password is required to protect your template. By having a password you can go back and edit at any time.

How to find that 'lost' email in Google Mail

Have you ever known you have an email somewhere in your email account but have had a hard time finding it? Let me show you how you can easily search in your MJSD Google Mail.

You can search in your

• Inbox
• Starred Mail
• Sent Mail
• Drafts
• Chats
• Spam
• Trash
• Folders
• All Mail

You can search by:

• who the mail was from
• who the mail was to
• email subject
• has the words ____ 
• doesn't have _____
• date (1 day - 1 year back)

Check out this video to see how to run a search.

The New Overdrive is here....download ebooks and audiobooks

Our Overdrive website has been updated!  Overdrive is the site where students and staff can check out eBooks and audiobooks free of charge from the Menasha Joint School District.  The site has just gone through some major renovations, and so I thought I would give a refresher on how to access Overdrive.  There are more changes coming very soon.  The one I am very excited about is being able to have instant access to eBooks and audiobooks without any sort of download.  You will need a library card number to access Overdrive.  Students use their student id number, and staff use their library number which they can get from any of the library paraprofessionals in the district.

Looking for your Google documents? They are still located within your gmail. They can be found under Drive. Drive is found on the top toolbar in the same place you would find documents. Drive has a cleaner look to shared documents. Out with the collections and in with folders. I hope the video below can help you maneuver through Google Drive a little easier.