Some Google Updates

 Being a Google School is a blessing and a curse -- a blessing because we have so many wonderful tools at our disposal that make teaching and learning truly engaging! A curse because Google is so good at taking feedback and making updates and changes, it can be difficult to keep up! One of the things I do as part of my service to you, my wonderful friends and colleagues, is try to stay on top of these changes and share the ones I think are more useful or impactful. Here are a couple I learned last week!

Google Slides

• Live pointers: this enables collaborators on a slide deck to see exactly where other collaborators are in real time. 
  
  
  
• Annotations: you can enable a tool pen and annotate slides while you're presenting them! To annotate your Slides presentation, ​​open ‘slideshow mode’ by clicking the ‘Slideshow’ button in the appbar > mouse over the bottom-left side of the viewer and open the three dot menu by clicking on the ellipsis icon >select “Turn on the pen”. To erase annotations, use the eraser tool in the bottom left viewer menu.
  
  
  

Google Docs

• Building blocks: These mini templates help you customize a Google Doc for tasks you need to do, including tagging someone, adding a dropdown menu, embedding files, adding calendar events, creating meeting notes, and more! It's as easy as hitting the @ in Docs and picking from a list of items!
  
  
  

Which one of these new features do you see yourself using most for yourself and with your students? Share on the comments!

Cool Tool Alert -- Blast from the "Past"

 My post for you this week is a bit of a nudge, reminding you of one of the most engaging tools we have to foster the 4 C's of collaboration, creativity, communication, and critical thinking -- and that's Breakout EDU.

Breakouts are a great way to introduce a concept or reinforce a concept in a fun and and engaging way. There are a couple ways to do Breakouts with your kids: digital (all online) and with the kit. Digital Breakouts can be done as a whole class, in small groups, or individually. When using the kit, working in small groups or as a whole class are your options.

Just to kind of entice you a bit, I spent some time scrolling through the options. Here are some Breakouts I found:

K-2:

• A Need to Eat (what plants and animals need to survive)
• A Perfect Habitat (different animal habitats)
• A Visit to the Zoo (addition and subtraction)
• Are We There Yet? (fiction and nonfiction features)
• Array Blaster (practice with arrays)
• Back in Time (learn about historical figures)

3-4:

• 3,2,1...Blastoff! (phases of the moon)
• A Pacific Problem (water cycle)
• Circus Americana (civic responsibility)
• Composting Catastrophe (composting and the environment)
• Cracking the Dewey Code (learning the Dewey Decimal System)

5-6:

• A Day at the Beach (optics, mirrors, lenses)
• A Night at the Movies: Who's That Quadrilateral? (quadrilaterals)
• Elementary Dear Poet (elements of poetry)
• End Marks, Ellipses, and Ephones (end punctuation)
• Every Vote Counts (the election process)

7-8:

• Ace the Slope or There is No Hope (graphing)
• Airport Arrival (verbs)
• Aliens Explain Alternate Energy (alternative energy sources)
• Articles of Confederation and Constitution (beginnings of our government)
• The Color Scheme (color theory)

Worried about how to do one of these activities? Don't. Your building tech and I are available to set it up, moderate, model, run it for you!

How do you know what's available? Well, you can hop onto the Breakout EDU website and do some browsing, or -- even easier -- is give me or your building tech information on what you're looking for and let us find some game options for you! Some games require a subscription to use, so each building tech and I have a subscription so we can find games for you. We can bring back suggestions for you, set up the kit for you (if you're using the kit), provide you with the answer key, and be in the room to run the game or assist you. I LOVE doing Breakouts with kids because I literally get to see thinking become visible. I get to see natural leaders emerge. I get to see kids be excited at solving a problem they persevered through. I get to see them have fun learning when they don't even realize they're learning!

Have you used Breakout EDU before? If so, please share your experience in the comments! I think that it is so valuable for us to hear from each other how powerful this learning tool is! And I'm super excited to maybe get the chance to come do a Breakout with you and your kids 🤞

Cool Tool Alert -- Diffit

 Do you ever need resources for your students, but they're on different levels so they need different versions? Happens all the time! After all, not every kid progresses the same way at the same time -- this is not news to educators! But sometimes it's a challenge to come up with leveled materials -- they are just not easy to come by and it can be time consuming.

Enter Diffit! You can plug in a topic, provide a link to an article or YouTube video, or copy/paste/upload text, choose a grade level, and VOILA! You've got yourself some leveled resources! You get the following items:

• A reading passage (WITH SOURCES!!!!!!!!)
• A bullet list summary
• Key vocabulary words with part of speech, definition, and sample sentence
• Multiple choice questions with answer key
• Short answer questions with answer key
• Open ended questions

You can also choose to export this in numerous formats/templates, including

• PDF
• Printable Google Doc
• Google Forms Quiz
• CER Short Answer Question Workbook
• 5 W's Workbook
• ACE Short Answer Questions Interactive Slides
• Compare and Contrast Workbook
• First, The, Finally Workbook
• Group Discussion Interactive Slides
• Main Idea Workbook
• One Thing I Learned by Paragraph Workbook
• Read and Digitally Annotate Interactive Slides
• Think, Pair, Share Interactive Slides
• AND SO MUCH MORE -- SERIOUSLY!!!!!

Now, disclaimer, the lowest grade level available is 2nd grade, and there is a free version, but there are more features/functionality with a paid version. Create an account with Diffit before November 1 and you will automatically get free trial access to all the new and upcoming premium features through January 31, 2024. You can read more about the licensing here.

Here's an example for you. When I was teaching ELA, I used to teach the novel House of the Scorpion to my 7th graders. One of the big topics in that book is human cloning -- a tough topic to tackle! So I sed that as a practice for Diffit. I created 3 different leveled resources -- 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade. I did additional exports of the resources for the 7th grade version. Check out the exports and the different levels in this folder. 

This has the potential to be a game changer in differentiation! What could you use it for? Be sure to share with me when you use it! I love hearing about how you use these tools, but I also get to give you a sticker when you use one of my Cool Tools!

Cool Tool Alert -- Twee

 Keeping in theme of using AI to save us time and effort while also enhancing instruction and learning, I would like to introduce Twee, an AI tool geared specially toward language arts teachers! What can Twee do? Here are some notable highlights:

• Create questions for a YouTube video
• Create warm-up questions for a YouTube video
• Create text on a topic
• Create questions for text (open ended, multiple choice, and true/false)
• Create intro activities for a text
• Create vocabulary activities (fill in the blank, matching)
• Create essential vocabulary for a text
• Create word formation exercises (like using the correct form of a verb)
• Sentence scrambles (unscramble words to make a sentence)
• Create verb tense exercises
• Find interesting facts on a topic to use to introduce a lesson
• Create a list of advantages and disadvantages on a topic

It is super easy to use! Watch the video below of a quick set of resources I created for Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day). In this 1:40 video, I created a set if open ended questions (with answers), multiple choice questions (with answers), true/false statements (with explanations for the false statements), and 3 different activities I can use to introduce this poem to students.

Seriously. There are so many AI tools out there on the internet that can be so useful and helpful. Are you using them? If not, why not?

Need help with Twee or any other AI tool? I'm just an email away! I am SO EXCITED to help teachers discover the magic of AI. You know the look kids get on their faces when they learn something new and feel good about it? I get to see that look on your face when I help you!