Thinglink, Google Classroom Update, iCloud Account, Klikaklu EduWin

They say, "A picture is worth a thousand words." With ThinkgLink, you can have both! ThingLink is a free tool that you and your students can use to create interactive images.

You start with an image you find on the web or you can upload your own image. You then add links to the image and create icons so users will know where to click. As the user mouses over the image, icons show up. When they click on the icon, it takes them out to the website.

This is a ThingLink I created to use with Charlotte's Web. As students explore the links, they'll find lots of resources to explore, including an NPR interview with the author, E. B. White, a short video, as well as a Quia Quiz, and a Scholastic site.



You can use your Google+ @unionsd.org to create an account. Make sure you opt for the edu account and sign up for the Teacher account. Once you do, you'll be able to create a group and free accounts for your students.

ThingLink is a great tool for students to use to create interactive reports. They can attach photos they've take, pictures of images they've created, URLs of Google Docs they have shared, screencasts they've made, audio they've recorded, or rich media resources they've found on the web. And, since works on all browsers, your students will be able to create a ThingLink on their Chromebook, as well as iOS and Android devices.

Here is a YouTube video, created by NPR Education, that will help you and your students get started creating your own:

While I'm sure you can find many ways to use ThingLink in your classroom, Donna Baumbach has created a collaborative Google Presentation, "Ways to Use ThingLink in the Classroom," that offers many ideas to get you started.

Google Classroom

This week, Google announced a Google Classroom mobile app available for both Android and iOS devices. With the new mobile app, students can take a photo and attach it to their assignment. 

There are also new features for teachers on the Assignment page. You'll be able to quickly review student work for a particular assignment, their grades, and any comments.

Creating an iCloud Account Without a Credit Card

Some teachers are still having difficulty creating an iCloud account without a credit care. You'll need this account to keep your computer up-to-date. Thanks to Jason for pointing out an easy way to do it. Here is a short video to show you how.

EduWin for Lisa Mata and Cindy Loper with Klikaklu

Last week, the Fourth Grade class at Alta Vista had a fun activity while visiting the San Juan Bautista Mission. Lisa and Cindy had visited and created a picture treasure hunt with Klikaklu.com. Parent chaperones with iPhones downloaded the app. Lisa shared her treasure hunt with them, and the students were off, searching San Juan Bautista for the spots. Students were excited and  engaged.

You don't have to use KlikaKlu only for field trips. What about creating a scavenger hunt for geometric shapes? Here's how to get started:

If you or one of your colleagues are doing something in your class that uses edtech tools, please let me know. I'd love to share it with other teachers.

Padlet/EduWin for Larissa Rehm

Welcome back to school! I hope you all had a wonderfully restful and restorative holiday break. 

Now that we are back and all Third through Eighth classrooms have enough Chromebooks for each student (pretty awesome, thanks to all the voters who supported Bond Measure J), you may be looking for an easy, quick activity to access with students. Padlet might be something you would like to consider.

Padlet is a virtual stickyboard where users can post short notes, images, videos, and URLs. It is easy to create a Padlet board, and you don't even need to sign up for an account to use your first Padlet. Here is a short YouTube video made by Richard Byrne of  http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ showing you how to set up and use Padlet:

Once you create a Padlet, it will be assigned a unique URL. As we all know, URLs can be a bit of a problem for students. Using a URL shortener is one way around it. I really like to use the goo.gl URL shortener. You copy your longer URL and paste it into the box, click "Shorten URL" and you'll have a URL that is easier for your students to use. If you are signed into your Google account, it will keep a record of your URLs and even generate a QR code you can give students who are using tablets or other smart devices. 

Another great URL shortener to use is shoutkey.com The advantage is that the URL that is generated uses words, eg shoutkey.com/kingdom. The downside is that each shoutkey stays active for a maximum of 24 hours. However, if you have created a Padlet account, you will still be able to revisit your Padlet, and you can create a new shoutkey if you would like to make a Padlet board available again for students to add to at a later date. However, you might like to create the shoutkey ahead of time to make sure the word is accessible and appropriate for your students.

There are many ways to use Padlet in your classroom. Here are just a few:

• have students brainstorm questions they would like to research about a certain topic
• create columns on a Padlet and have students indicate where they are in the writing process by placing their name in the appropriate column
• have students post examples of a ELA concept, eg: "Write a metaphor." "Give an example of an adjective."
• if you have a library of photos/images, students can post them. An example might be in a primary class, "Post a picture of a word that has the long o sound."
• have students post pictures that represent a math concept, eg. "Post a picture of an object that includes a right triangle."
• have students write a short book endorsement and include a picture of its cover
• post a question for students to respond to, "What evidence do you have that the main character...?"
• use it as an exit ticket, "What is your most important take-away from today's lesson?"
• create a bank URLs of websites they find that can be used to research a particular subject. 

I'm sure you can find many of uses for Padlet I haven't begun to think of. If you find yourself using Padlet a lot, you can install a Chrome Extension from the Chrome Webstore. (Let me know if you need help with this). Then, it will sit on your toolbar and you'll be able to Create (a) New (Padlet) at a moment's notice.

EduWin for Larissa Rehm

Being a Fourth grade teacher, Larissa and her class are deep into the Mission Project. This year, her students will use Google Presentation to write their report, complete with pictures they have sourced from the internet. This is a great way to familiarize students with a new tool and teach them about giving attribution to the creators of those images, while completing a traditional Fourth Grade project. 

Larissa is also planning on having students create science notebooks using Google Presentation. Her long range goal is to have students save and showcase their work on a website. Way to jump in, Larissa!

If you or one of your colleagues are doing something in your class that uses edtech tools, please let me know. I'd love to share it with other teachers.

The Hour of Code

Forty-four USD teachers reported introducing the Hour of Code to their students. All grades were represented! Thank you to all who participated. The names of all the teachers who filled in the Google Form were put into a random name picker for a thank you drawing. Christina Le, a Kindergarten teacher at Lietz, was chosen. A MakeyMakey kit has been ordered for her. We hope she and her class will enjoy using it.

AudioBoom EduWin with Debbie Arrieta, Cindy Loper, Susan Raser, and Todd Sinclair

With AudioBoom you can record, upload and playback audio recordings. I love AudioBoom because it is a multiple platform tool. You can record through its website on a Mac or Chromebook, or you can use an iOS iPad or iPhone, or an Android tablet or phone. Your recordings can then be accessed when you sign into your account, regardless of the device.

Another reason I love AudioBoom is how easy it is to share. Each recording generates a URL, a QR code, and an embed code so you can add it to your website.

Recording files can include a photo, which can be uploaded or the app allows you to take a photo to add to the audio file.

Over the past few weeks, I've seen the AudioBoom iPad app used in Debbie Arrieta's Kindergarten class. Her students recorded a few sentences about themselves on an iPad and then Debbie helped the student take a photo of their drawing using the camera on the iPad. Debbie printed out a small QR code, cut it out, and glued it to pictures the students had made of themselves. She plans to include the picture in their memory books so parents will not only have an art project memory, but will also be able to listen to their student's voice when he/she was 5 years old.

Susan Raser used AudioBoom as part of the Cultural Doll unit. Susan had taken photos of the students' Cultural Doll projects ahead of time. Her class used Susan's MacBook and the AudioBoom website to record a description of their doll and a little bit about what they had learned about their cultural heritage while doing the project. Susan easily uploaded the photo from her iPhoto file to complete the AudioBoom file. Susan created a Playlist and added all the Cultural Doll audio files to the Playlist. She created a webpage and then added the embed code from the Playlist. You can see her page at  http://www.unionsd.org/Page/5763 You'll have to listen really carefully. A lesson learned is that students will have to speak up really loudly, and that using an external mic may work better.

Todd Sinclair has his students producing a weekly podcast update with AudioBoom. Listen to it here.

Last year, I used AudioBoom a lot. For example, while reading the story "Across the Wide Dark Sea," students wrote the diary of a passenger on the boat. They then recorded their writing and added a picture. Third grade students became so familiar with how to use AudioBoom on the iPad, all I had to do was sign in for them. You can listen to one of them here or you can use a bar code reader or a QR scanner. Just point it at the QR code, and you will be taken to the URL where you can listen to the recording.

While on a field trip, I passed the iPad around and had students record something they learned or found surprising. Back in class, I printed a large QR code and put it in the window. Parents used their smartphones to scan the code. It took them right to the audio recording and had something to listen to while they waited for their students.

How about an audio Holiday greeting? As some of you may know, Cindy Loper is an amazing glass artist. She has brought this passion to her classroom with a holiday ornament. On the reverse side, she has fused the QR code so families will have a lasting memory of their student's holiday greeting.  You can have the students create a card, or poem, record it, and add the QR code to their work.



Here is a short video on how to get started:

This will probably be the last blog post of 2014. I have seen so many wonderful things happening in classrooms as teachers begin to integrate technology into their curriculum, and students become more confident in their skills.

I feel honored to have been able to watch the transformation, and to be working with such an amazing group of dedicated and forward-thinking teachers. I can't wait to see what 2015 will bring.

Best wishes to you and your families for a healthy and happy holiday season.

Next Week: The Hour of Code/EduWin for Regina Smith/EdCamp SJ

Don't miss having your students spend a fun hour learning the basics of coding next week. It is super easy to sign up and you don't need to know the first thing about coding or programming to get your kids involved. Just this week, I was in Regina Smith's Third Grade class at Oster, helping her to enroll her students.

Regina had gone to http://learn.code.org/ , clicked the Teacher Sign Up button and then signed up using her Google Account, using her @unionsd.org email address. By signing up, her class was added to the list of over 33,500 events, and Oster was put on the map!

Here, I've signed up for a class just to show you how easy it is.

When you get to the Teacher Home Page, choose Student Accounts and Progress. It's the choice in the upper left-hand corner.

Name your class, choose to have your students use an email to log in. Don't worry, elementary school teachers, what they are looking for is the format. Since your students already know their Google account log-ins, it'll be easy for them to remember.

Choose your grade, and pick the course. I chose "Hour of Code" because it starts off fairly easy and takes students through a number of progressively more difficult lessons. It is a great differentiating activity.

Once you do press Save, you'll get a Section Code. Your students will use this code to sign into your class.

Your students will also start at the http://learn.code.org/ webpage, but they will choose Student Sign Up. They will be required to enter a name, e-mail address, password, and age. I created a student with only my daughter's first name and a fake e-mail address and was successful in creating an account.





Once signed up, your students click Sign Up, and are taken to the Welcome page, they will need to scroll to the bottom of the page to Add a Teacher. Here, they will add the Section Code for your class. As students click on Add teacher, you'll see the number students increase. Students will then be able to start the activities, and you'll be able to watch their progress.

UPDATE for USD teachers: Trent has added it and it makes it really easy for your students to sign in. When the students click on Hour of Code, their name and Google account name will automatically populate. Students will need to enter an age to sign up. That will take them to the Hour of Code. They will still need to scroll down to "Add a teacher."

Next time they go to Hour of Code from the Symbaloo page, it will automatically sign them in and take them to the page where they can get started! Couldn't get much easier than that!

Thank you, Kathy, for suggesting it, and Trent, for putting it all in place.

Regina's class just dug right in, even before we were able to walk them through the directions. In fact, when one boy was having difficulty getting started, we just asked for a volunteer to explain what to do and 3/4s of the hands went up.

Here's a video you might like to show your students to help them understand what to do:

While the event is called "Hour of Code," students can sign in whenever and from wherever they like, and there are other activities they can try.

We hope you'll give Hour of Code a try. We can see by the map that someone from most of our schools has signed up. If you are one of those teachers, let us know. We'll throw everyone's name into a hat and choose one for a (small) appreciation prize.

If you'd like to have more information about The Hour of Code, you can find it here.

EdCamp SJ

Ever go to a Professional Development Conference and wish you had more control over the sessions offered? If so. EdCamp is for you.

EdCamps started about three years ago, and have been spreading all over the world. It is a free event where teachers suggest topics they'd like to talk about and learn more about. The event organizers then group topics together and create an agenda. The sessions are assigned a room and time, and the participants are off. 

When you enter the room, there is no presenter, just a bunch of "like-minded" and "like-interested" educators willing to contribute to rich conversation, or just listen and learn.

EdCamp is coming to San Jose, and will be hosted at Union Middle School on April 25th. While April might seem like a long way off, people are already signing up, so you might want to check your calendar and consider reserving your spot on EventBrite.

Word Clouds/EduWin from Kaitlin Klein

I love word clouds. They can be a beautiful representation of text, highlighting the words and concepts that are most important.

There are lots of ways to use word clouds in a classroom. Here are a few I thought of:

• Students can create word clouds of different passages from related books, and then compare and contrast the texts.
• Teachers can create a word cloud of an upcoming topic. Then use the word cloud to identify key vocabulary and concepts. Teachers can review the unfamiliar words and   students can anticipate the key concepts.
• Students can create a word cloud before summarizing text, to help them identify the most important points.
• Word clouds can help students analyze important historical texts or news articles to see what author felt was most important.
• Teachers can collect words or impressions on any topic in a Google Form, and then copy and paste the text into a word cloud. I would do this after every field trip to see what most impressed students, to find out what their “take aways” were.
• Word clouds can also provide a powerful way for students to analyze their own writing. Pop the text into a word cloud, and students will get a visual representation of which words are used and overused in their writing. With this information, they can revise writing to use richer vocabulary.

Wordle and Tagxedo are the two word clouds teachers are most familiar with. Both have their advantages. Wordle is easy to use. With Tagxedo, you can have your words make a shape, and then, when you mouse over a word, it pops out of the word cloud. But both of them require you to download and install applications on your computer. Wordle requires Java, and Tagxedo requires Microsoft Silverlight. Both work on Safari and Firefox, but neither work on Chrome. That makes either of those more teacher tools than student tools.

Google Docs now has an Add-on available that students can easily use to analyze their own writing. It will need to be added to Google Docs, but once it is, it is easy for students to use. And since it is a Google Docs’ Add-on, it will work on Chromebooks. True, it doesn’t give the user any options and only picks up the primary words, but students can use it to analyze, reflect on, and revise their writing. Here’s how to enable it.


In the toolbar of any Docs document, click on Add-ons. Go to "Get add-ons..."

Then search for "cloud."

When you get the results, choose “Tag Cloud Generator,” and click on the blue +Free box.


Now that it is enabled, you can create a word cloud in any Google Drive document that has at least 100 words. A word cloud is automatically generated when you choose Add-ons > Tag Cloud Generator > Create a tag cloud. Revise the text, and create another cloud. It is just that easy.

The three word clouds used in this post were all made with the same text. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, but just think of how powerful a visual (and fun) tool word clouds can become in your classroom.

I’m guessing there are dozens of ways I haven’t begun to think of. Let me know how you use word clouds in your classroom. I’d love to pass along some of your ideas.

Hour of Code - December 8-14, 2014

The Hour of Code is fast approaching. Over 43,000 events in over 180 countries are already planned. With all the excitement, they are well on their was to reaching 1 million students this year.

Taking part in the Hour of Code doesn't take that much set up, and there are lots of resources online to help you get started.  Last year, I looked through the first two lessons and set my kids loose. Before I knew it, some were charging through the ten lessons and had become the local experts.

There were Angry Birds activities or students could make a holiday card. With choices, students could find what they liked to delve into it. While I had a parent in the computer lab along with me, it wasn't long before the kids had surpassed us. When there was a question, we just called on our student experts to help.

We'd love to know how many of you are participating. Let us know by sending me an e-mail at lynchm@unionsd.org

EduWin/EDpuzzle with Kaitlin Klein

Ever assign a video for your students to watch and then wonder if they actually got anything out of it? EDpuzzle was developed to encourage active watching and learning.

Kaitlin Klein has been using EDpuzzle with her students. "I am using EdPuzzle to create video lessons. The students seem very engaged and I like the ability to embed questions and voice comments etc. into the videos."

EDPuzzle is easy to use. You can find video from a number of sources, including YouTube, Khan Academy, Vimeo,  LearnZillion, or you can upload your own video.

To try it out, I found a YouTube video on animal adaptations. I was able to trim it to only include the portion I wanted, and I added three questions. In addition, I could have added voice directions and comments. 

It is easy to assign to your students. They will need to sign up, but EDpuzzle provides you with a code so they can join your class. You can then monitor their progress and see their scores.


Here is the EDpuzzle assignment I made in just a few minutes.

Thanks, Kaitlin, for letting us know about this easy to use and free resource. 

If you or one of your colleagues are doing something in class that uses edtech tools, please let me know. I'd love to share it with other teachers.

Search your Gmail and Drive/EduWin from Julia Pugliese

Do you spend too much time trying to find that e-mail from a  parent from last year, or about a particular topic that was sent last year when you did that unit? Lucky for you, Gmail is a Google product. And if there is one thing Google does well, it's search. Here is a quick video to find out how to find the e-mail you are looking for in a hurry.



You access Advanced Search to the right of the search field. Just click on the drop-down arrow,

to open up the menu.

If you know the approximate date of the e-mail you are looking, you can narrow your search. If you leave the date blank, your entire mailbox will be searched. It will even search mail that you migrated to Gmail.

You can also use Search to find Google Drive files. New Drive allows you to put in a key search term, and then narrow your search by file type, the application your file will open with (opens files you created using apps from Google Drive), and by owner. Here, I am searching for a Document file with the keyword "animal."

There are lots of operators you can use to search for a document, even if what you are looking for isn't in the title. For example, I went to a conference and took notes in a presentation given by "kristen berg." By putting the exact words in quotes, the search will look through all my files and return results that include that exact phrase. You can see here that the words, "kristen berg" don't appear in the title of either files.

There are lots other operators you can use to help narrow your search. If you want to know more, click here.

EduWin with Julia Pugliese and Google Translate

This year, one of the students in Julia Pugliese's second grade class spoke no English. Julia opened up Google Translate, and she and her students recorded short phrases in English, that Google translated to Japanese. While it wasn't perfect, Julia's student understood enough to be able to be able to know where the class was going when they left the room for PE, music, or lunch, and began to be able to follow along in class.

In this screenshot, you can see that I used Ingrid to speak a short sentence in Dutch. Google translated it to English, and I then starred it to save to the phrasebook.

There are also options to type, using the standard US keyboard, but it will also open language specific keyboards and a handwriting tool. 

While I wouldn't recommend using Google Translate for sensitive communication with parents, there are 70 languages available and Google is constantly trying to improve Translate's accuracy with feedback from its users.

And while you may not have occasion to use Google Translate in your classroom, anyone thinking of taking a trip abroad this coming summer? Might want to pack Google Translate with you.

If you or one of your colleagues are doing something in your class that uses edtech tools, please let me know. I'd love to share it with other teachers.

Get Googly/EduWin from Dartmouth

Are you missing the Training  icon that should appear in the top right corner of some of your Google Apps windows? If yours is missing, you'll want to make sure you and your students follow the directions to find and launch the program. It is the icon for Synergyse. 

Synergyse is a training program that provides an interactive way to learn to use Google Apps. By following the step-by-step directions, you and your students will soon become Google Apps for Education (GAFE) experts.

Signing into Google Drive and Enabling Synergyse will tell you how to install it and how to get started.

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Since lessons are short and specific, teachers may want to challenge students to become Google Ninjas by completing the modules. It can be a great "What do I do when I'm finished?" activity that students can dip and out of whenever they have time.

We'd be interested in you letting us know how it goes. 

EduWin from the "Dartmouth Tech Divas"

I was really excited to be invited to a Dartmouth Staff meeting where some of the students presented work they have been doing in class. Given the low percentage of women in Science and Technology careers, I was especially excited to learn that the presenters would all be girls. Pam Rissman and Tracy Brown teach all these classes. Pam was kind enough to provide me with this report.

"Eleven girls presented the projects they worked on in different STEM classes offered at Dartmouth, highlighting the importance of having these STEM classes in middle school.  The girls from the computer programming class presented Javascript programs they wrote that increased in complexity; the class requires no prior knowledge in programming yet a student can develop their own interactive graphical games by the end of this self-paced class.  Students from the 3d Modeling class explained how they use the engineering design process to develop their own 3d models in Autodesk Inventor which can later be printed out on the 3d printer. The Robotics class students pointed out different parts of a robot developed in class, including the gears and sensors.  Students from the Green Architecture class discussed the concepts and terms they learned to allow them to build models of houses in Autodesk Revit and to design container homes and environmentally green dog houses. The girls from the STEM 1 class showed the link they established between science and engineering by studying friction in mouse-trap propelled cars and other hands-on projects." 

While diva is generally used to refer to singers, I think of diva as a woman of extraordinary talent. There is no question in my mind that each of these students is extraordinarily talented. How wonderful that they are given the opportunity to explore those talents in classes offered here in the Union School District. Can't wait to see what they have in store for the world.

If you or one of your colleagues are doing something in your class that uses edtech tools, please let me know. I'd love to share it with other teachers.