An Amazing 30 Minutes

I gave my students a self-graded quiz on Wednesday using a Google Form. When the students completed the exam and submitted the form I immediately got their answers and grades on the form's spreadsheet. I was able to tell the students their grades as soon as they completed the test.

When all of the students completed the exam, I used the Summary of Responses to show the class how everyone did and we reviewed the questions that students did not do well on. I could easily see what percentage of students didn't know the answer to a question. To download a pdf of the Summary of Responses click here.

This all took place in the span of one 30 minute period! I was psyched! To be able to have the students take the quiz, get their grades and review the answers in the same period enabled the students to get immediate responses and helped me address the questions that students did not answer correctly.

As an educator I felt that my time was not taken up with the grading of tests. I was able to use the data from the test to address student's learning in a timely manner and help them better learn the material.

Setting Up a Self-Grading Quiz

Setting up a self-grading test is easy with Google Apps. The three videos below will show you how to do this.

You may also want to download Chris Clementi's handout which is based on the videos.

Setting Up Your Test Part 1 - Writing the Questions

Setting Up Your Test Part 2 - Posting the Test and Setting Up the Answer Key

Setting Up Your Test Part 3 - Getting The Grades

Google Apps/Internet Safety

Back in the late 1960's when I was in junior high school we had wood shop. One of our projects was to make a sailboat out of two pieces of wood. We cut, carved and sanded the wood into the right shapes and then attached them to a piece of stained plywood that suggested the sea and the sky. The piece is till hanging in my parent's home. The object of the class was to give the boys in the class experience with tools and carpentry to prepare us for the second half of the 20th century.

At the school I teach in we are preparing our students for the 21st century by using Google Apps as a safe haven where students can use 21st century tools within the confines of our school community. The students have email, sites, docs and more so that they can safely experience using collaborative digital tools.

My sixth-grade students recently finished Google Apps safety videos. The videos started out with students writing scripts on Google Apps Safety based on discussions and presentations made in class.

Then the students used Comic Life, a Mac OS app, to storyboard the script and set up place holders for the images. Photos where then taken, imported into iPhoto and then used in Comic Life. iPhoto and Comic Life play together nicely.

When the Comic Life text and images were done the Comic Life pages were then exported back to iPhoto. Once this was done the students used iMovie to import the Comic Life images and add voice overs. The completed movies were exported as DV files and posted on our school's YouTube channel.

I have posted some fo the videos below:

Empowering Students with Google Apps Education Edition

The slide presentation has lots of screen shots on:

• What is Google Apps Education Edition
• Setting Up a Google Apps Education Edition Account
• Administrating a Google Apps Education Edition Account

The last slide is a video of two students talking about how Google Docs helped them.

My chapter on Google Apps for Education is included in the book Retool Your School, see below. The chapter is an extended version of the above presentation.

Available July 2010 from ISTE

Retool Your School by James Lerman
Authors James Lerman and Ronique Hicks, and eight other Google Certified Teachers, show you why Google Applications are the best free online learning tools available today. You will discover how students and educators can collaborate with Google Documents, how the forms application allows teachers to create instant-feedback quizzes, how a literature class can take lit trips with Google Maps, how parents can view student work thanks to websites created with Google Sites, how iGoogle can help everyone develop personal learning networks, and so much more. The possibilities are endless-and the applications are free.

Retool Your School begins with an inspirational and achievable story that illustrates how Google Applications and good leadership transformed a school facing closure to one that in just one year is seen as a model of success. The book then dives into step-by-step directions on how to use multiple applications, detailing the benefits they provide to many aspects of education and school management. More than 40 lesson plans for elementary, middle, and high school will help you get started while the book's many ideas and supplemental resources show how to implement these tools to transform communication, collaboration, and creativity in your school and classroom. Don't miss the special chapter on how to bring the Education Edition directly to your school or district.

Google Apps for Education Help Page

To help the students and teachers at my school make the transition to Google Apps for Education Edition I set up a wiki help site that includes videos, handouts and links to Google help sites.



The site is located at:  http://eisenhowerms.pbworks.com


Sections of the site include:

• Google Apps Information
• Google Docs Information
• Using Documents
• Using Spreadsheets
• Using Presentations
• Using Forms 
• Gmail 
• Google Calendar
• Google Sites

Using Postini to Manage Gmail Accounts in Google Apps

Using Postini with Gmail

Limiting Gmail to your Google Apps for Education Domain Only
This handout will walk you through using Postini to set up your Google Apps Education domain so that email can only be sent to and from email addresses within your domain. If you are in a K-12 school this is a way to give your students email accounts to email teachers and fellow students only. You must activate Postini Services to do this.

Using Postini Sender Lists
If you have used Postini to set up your Apps Domain so that no one from outside your domain can send email to the Gmail addresses in your domain you may want to allow specific senders or senders from a specific domain to pass through the filter. In my district teachers have email accounts in another domain, wyckoffschools.org. I wanted my Apps Gmail users to be able to receive and send email to wyckoffschools.org. Also, if you have limited email to your domain only Google Calendar alerts will not get through your filter. This handout shows you how to allow Google Calendar alerts to pass through your filter.

Using Postini's Quarantine Feature
Postini gives you the ability to “quarantine” email. This means that if you create a filter to block email to or from specific email addresses or domains you can designate a person, or shared email address, to get a copy of the blocked email. You can also use Postini filters to block inappropriate language in the content of email coming from or going to your domain. Quarantining this email will help administrators easily identify students who are violating school email policy.

Great Moments in Art

Great Moments in Art is a calendar that uses Google Calendar to create a calendar of artist birthdays and other moments in art history. Since Google Calendar is linked to Google Maps including the artists' place of birth in the event listing will create a link to a map. Information about the artist appears in the description field. Google Calendar users may use the "copy to my calendar" feature to add the event to their calendar.

iTunesU

This is a short video with info on what is available at iTunesU. Info on how to use it is also available.http://tinyurl.com/6r6vxk

Poetry In Motion

I just posted a page from my NAEA session Poetry In Motion
http://www.olejarz.com/arted/digitalvideo/poetryinmotion07.html


Volunteers from the session were given lines from a poem to dramatize. The dramatizations were videotaped and transferred to iMovie. I demonstrated the process of editing the video and adding graphics, titles and credits. A QuickTime video of the performance is posted on the web.

DigitalHarold - E.A.T. - Education Art Technology

Unfortunately, been too busy to write but wanted to post the statement that I came up with about education and technology.

Using technology to demonstrate teaching and learning is the best way for educators to prove that they are using technology to enhance teaching and learning.