This week we leveraged many of the elements of Google Classroom including building presentations for our Great American Day, taking a quiz with Google Forms, reviewing geography with http://www.earth-picker.com/ and Google Maps, and sharing data via Google Sheets. Taken together, we were able to blend our learning and reach outcomes not possible just a few years ago.
Today marked the beginning of Computer Science Education Week and, as part of it, we completed an Hour of Code. This is a state supported and nationwide movement to honor the value of coding and make it more accessible to students. You can learn more about it from the Nevada Department of Education’s press release here.
As an extra incentive, we Tweeted to Golden State Warrior Steph Curry our efforts. Curry has promised to select a classroom that participates in the Hour of Code and video conferencing with them.
Today we took an assessment covering multiplication and division of fractions and decimals. I changed things up a bit, however, by having students record their answers in Google Forms. This allows for instant feedback like you see below for me and a way for parents to keep current on student performance. In short, I’ll likely be doing this again.
The students started sharing their Google Slides presentations on Friday and we will continue to do this throughout next week. The presentations look great and showcase how “digital natives” can fluidly blend a traditional book report with 21st Century tools.
Many students already emailed their reports to parents and in some cases, to their classroom peers.
Today we set-up our Google Classroom. Our first project involved using Google Docs to help us with taking our draft pieces of writing through the writing process and into publishing. Google Classroom also helped us with greater classroom flexibility and differentiation.
Students all have secure usernames and passwords and can continue working on their writing at any time. (This includes at home!) Moreover, I will always have access to what they are doing and I will be able to provide feedback.
Room 360 