Tech Tip Tuesday: New! Schedule Assignments in Google Classroom

One of the things I love most about Google Apps for Education is that they're always working hard to develop and add the features that teachers request. Last week, they added a long awaited feature- the ability to schedule assignments in Google Classroom!

In the past, you could go ahead and create posts for future assignments, but they had to be kept in draft format and manually posted when you wanted them to post. Now, you can schedule them so (if you're like me) you don't forget!

There's really no magic to this one, I just wanted to let you know about it in case you've always wished it was there and haven't noticed the new change! To schedule your post, create an assignment as usual (this video can help if you don't know how!). But, instead of choosing "assign" or "save as draft", choose the new "schedule" option and set your date and time!

Thanks Google!!

Tech Tip Tuesday: Speaking Practice for ELLs Using Google Tools

I'm so excited about this Tech Tip Tuesday because I have another great use for some Google Tools to share with you!

This tech tip was inspired by a concern that I heard from many of my teachers- when their students had to do the ACCESS speaking test on the computer for the first time this year, many students had never been recorded before and were timid when it came to completing the tasks. Many teachers were concerned that this would have a detrimental effect on students' speaking scores.* Please see disclaimer at the end of this post.

Therefore, I wanted something that could provide a similar experience, while also providing valuable practice with computer literacy skills and targeted academic language. I've devised a way that's Google-integrated and allows teachers to provide students with speaking practice tasks. The two tools used for this tip are Mic Note for Google Chrome and Google Drive. The app is seamlessly integrated with Google Drive so that it is easy to import and share notes and recordings. I'm especially thrilled because this allows you to also include a recording of the prompt being read aloud and visuals- just like students encounter on the test.

The video below walks you through the process of adding the app to your Chrome browser, using the app to create the speaking prompt, and then covers how students will import the note, record their response and then export to the teacher for grading. Please don't miss the important notes at the bottom of this post!

This downloadable document is a handy quick-guide to the process that makes for easy reference once you've figured it all out!

A few important notes:

• When you share the main folder with students, be sure to check the box at the bottom (underneath where you type the email addresses) that prevents editors (in this case, your students) from adding collaborators and changing access permissions. 
• After every student has completed a task, you may wish to make the folder private again to yourself, or transfer the student files out of the shared folder and into folders shared only between you and the student. This helps add a layer of privacy by preventing students from accessing one another's work.
• When students open the drive from the invitation email, they will need to click the blue "Add to my drive" button in the upper right so that they will be able to find the prompt notes and save their recordings. 

Why this is great for ELLs:
Using this tip allows teachers to provide valuable practice throughout the year that accomplishes several goals:

• Gets students accustomed to recording themselves on the computer
• Provides targeted practice for academic language, and more practice is always better
• Gets students accustomed to format of the speaking tasks they have to do on the test

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this tip! If you try it out and have questions, please email me! If you try it and love it, please also let me know!

Disclaimer:
 I am NOT an advocate of teaching to the test. However, there are many real-life applications for recording one's voice with a computer, such as creating a video or a podcast. Getting students comfortable with being recorded and talking to a computer is great because it opens avenues to multi-modal projects and learning.

On another hand, my teachers often mentioned that they didn't really know how to assess student speaking in the day-to-day run of class, as often "speaking practice" was in the form of collaborative discussions. Authentic conversations are great, but often can be harder to assess. Sometimes getting an individual sample can be easier to assess and can be more valuable for showing academic language growth.

I also feel like this activity can be valuable because I don't believe it is fair to assess students using a type of activity that they haven't done before. That's why we have other types of practice for the PARCC and other tests they take. I don't think we should spend an overwhelming time doing this "practice for testing", but I do think it is important to expose students to activities similar to those they will be assessed on in the end. If students are truly proficient, I don't feel that unfamiliarity with the task should hold them back from exiting ESOL services. 

Tech Tip Tuesday: Using Google Voice to Communicate with ELL Families

Time for another Tech Tip Tuesday, and I'm really excited to share this little tip with you- and not just because I made an infographic, either! One of the biggest questions that I get when I lead PD, from ESOL teachers and mainstream teachers alike, is "How can I make communicating with families easier if I don't speak their language?" Another problem that I ran into was that many of my ELL parents worked two jobs or jobs at odd hours, and weren't always able to call me during school hours. I wanted to be able to communicate with them, but wasn't comfortable giving out my personal cell phone number. I've talked before about using Gmail's translate feature to communicate with parents, but not every parent has gmail or checks their email regularly.

So, here's your tech tip- Google Voice can really make two way communication with families of ELLs just as easy as communicating with English speaking families! In addition, you can also use this tip to communicate with ANY parent, while keeping your own personal phone number private.

To get started, first login to your Gmail account (if you don't have one, get one- it's free!). Go to the apps menu in the upper right corner (it looks like a little waffle). Scroll down until you see "Even more from Google" and click there.

Next, you'll get a screen with many many links. Scroll down to "Home & Office" and select "Google Voice".

Once you're there, follow these steps:

1. Agree to the terms and conditions.
2. Select "I want a new number".
3. Put in your cell phone number- this will not be shared with parents, but it needs to be entered so that the texts and calls to your Google Voice number can be forwarded to your personal number. 
4. Enter your school's zip code and select a number for your school's city. 

Now, you can share your Google Voice number with parents, and you can text back-and-forth at any time. If the parent speaks English or you speak their home language, then you can also use this number for voice calls and even voicemails.

If you need to put your text message into the parent's home language, you can do that using Google Translate. Parents can respond in their home language and you can also use Google Translate to translate their response so you can read and understand it. Google Translate has improved vastly from the old days- largely because they've been crowdsourcing translation for several years, allowing users to contribute more accurate translations. This means that overall, Google Translate is pretty darn accurate these days. Just to be sure, I always copy, paste, and translate back to English.

In addition to storing the communication on your phone, Google Voice also collects it all (for easy documentation!!) in your Google Voice account in a pretty handy view that is very similar to your Gmail. 

The teachers in our district that are using this tool to communicate with parents are thrilled with the results. It only takes a few seconds to send a parent good news about their child, let them know about an upcoming school event, or to contact the parent with concerns- no need to call for an interpreter. Parents feel much more connected to what is going on in their child's school or classroom, and students are thrilled when their parents get "good news" texts. 

Here's a handy infographic to help walk you through the steps:

Why this is great for ELLs:

I think this goes without saying, but....there are so many reasons! Making the parents feel more connected to what is going on at school and in the classroom has so many benefits, from increased motivation, greater parent involvement, and the ability to handle important situations and communicate urgent information right away- without having to wait for a translator. 

Tech Tip Tuesday: Writing Journals in Google Docs

Happy Tech Tip Tuesday! This tip is fun, and centered around the use of Google Drive and Google Docs. One of the most important skills our students need to develop is the ability to compose a piece of writing on a computer. This is especially important for my ELLs, because not only is our state test (which includes writing) done on a computer, but so is their ACCESS English language proficiency test- including the writing portion. 

One great way to help students practice this important skill is with writing journals in Google Docs. Students get to practice their writing skills, while also practicing their computer and typing skills. So what does a writing journal look like when done in Google Docs? Check out this sample Water Cycle Writing Journal. 

Writing journals in Google Docs can be easy to grade, especially using extensions like Doctopus and Goobric. Journals are also easy to organize in Google Docs by using headings and links to create a table of contents, like I did in the sample journal.

Like all files in Google Drive, these writing journals can easily be shared via Doctopus, a link, email, or as assignments in Google Classroom. The videos below show you how!

If you try using Google Docs to create writing journals for students, I'd love to hear how it goes! If you're already using Google Docs this way, comment below and tell us how it's going!

Why this is great for ELLs:
For my ELLs, the domain most frequently preventing them from exiting ESOL services is writing. They need lots of opportunities to write, and developing their computer skills is also a priority. Using Google Docs as a writing journal is an excellent way to kill two birds with one stone.

#ELLEdTech Chat 2: Google Apps for Education and ELLs

Our second #ELLEdTech Chat is scheduled for Sunday, March 20 at 7pm EST. This month's topic is Google Apps for Education and ELLs. As a Google Certified Education Trainer, I love find new tools, tips and tricks in Google Apps for Education (GAFE) to support language learning and growth for ELLs. Even more importantly, giving your ELLs opportunities to use GAFE will help prepare them for the future- over 68% of Fortune 500 companies use Google for Work. So, tune in and tell us how you're using GAFE with your ELLs!

Questions and Timeline

7:00 = Tell us your name, location, level and subject taught #EllEdTech

7:05 = Q1: How many of you are currently using Google Apps with ELLs? #EllEdTech

7:13 = Q2: Which Google tools are you currently using with your ELLs? #EllEdTech

7:21 = Q3: How are you using these tools to support language growth? #EllEdTech

7:29 = Q4: What benefits do you see from using Google Apps with ELLs? #EllEdTech

7:37 = Q5: What advice do you have for teachers just starting to use Google Apps with their ELLs? #EllEdTech

Directions for Joining the Chat:

1. Log into Twitter on Sunday; the chat runs from 7:00 - 7:45pm Eastern.

2. Search for tweets with the hashtag #ELLEdTech in the search bar.  Make sure to click “All tweets.”

3. The first five minutes will be spent introducing ourselves.

4. Starting at 7:05, @ESOL_Odyssey or @The_ESL_Nexus will post questions every 8 minutes using Q1, Q2, Q3, etc. to identify the questions and the hashtag #ELLEdTech.

5.  Answer the questions by prefacing them with A1, A2, A3, etc. and use the hashtag #ELLEdTech.

6.  Follow any teachers who respond and are also using #ELLEdTech.

7.  Like (click the heart icon) and post responses to other teachers' tweets.

You can schedule your answers to the questions in advance by using an online scheduler such as TweetDeck or HootSuite (and remember to use A1, A2, etc. and #ELLEdTech).  Links are encouraged, but use tinyurl, bitly,goo.gl or ow.ly to shorten your link so it can be included in your tweet.  Just click one of those links, paste the longer link in the app's box to shorten it for Twitter, then paste the shortened link into your tweet . If you have relevant images, we encourage you to post them, too.

Is this your first Twitter chat? Here are our rules:

1. Please stay on topic.

2. Please do not post about paid products unless explicitly asked. 

3. If you arrive after the chat has started, please try to read the previous tweets before joining in.

4. Feel free to just read, like, and/or retweet if you prefer -- we know the first time can be a little overwhelming!

5. Always use the hashtag #ELLEdTech when tweeting.

6. When responding to someone, please be sure to "mention" them by including their Twitter handle.

7. Make sure your twitter feed is set to "public." (And do remember that Twitter is completely public; that means anyone--students, parents, teachers, school staff, administrators--may see what you tweet.) 

You are welcome to let any of your teacher friends who might be interested in joining us know about this Twitter chat. We can't wait to chat with you on Sunday evening!

Can't make it to the chat? Check out the archives to see what you missed!

Tech Tip Tuesday: Using Google Drive for Collaborative Planning

Most teachers these days are involved in collaborative planning of some sort- whether it is collaborative grade level planning, or planning collaboratively with a co-teacher or specialist. Usually this means all the required participants must sit in a room together for an 45 minutes to an hour during a planning period, hashing it all out. If someone's out for a workshop or sick day, the  everyone else has to take up the slack.

But, why not let Google Drive revolutionize your collaborative planning? Teammates can easily input their information into a shared Google Doc, and everyone can see at a glance what everyone else is doing or planning for the week. This means mainstream classroom teachers who are departmentalized (as was 3rd, 4th and 5th at my last school) can easily plan cross-curricular connections into their lessons because they know what everyone else on the team is teaching at all times. Specialists can always come to classes prepared, because they know from the shared planning document what you will be doing. Planning a shared lesson that everyone teaches is a breeze as team members can easily add their portion of the lesson to the shared doc.

Even better, if your plans change because of an unexpected assembly, or because you found kids weren't getting it and you need to reloop instead of moving forward, then that information can be noted in the shared document, and is instantly available to all participants, so they can adjust their plans accordingly. If team members have a question about something that someone has input into the shared document, these questions can be asked, answered, and resolved via the "comments" feature. Lesson resources (videos, websites, links to activities) can be easily linked to.

For some of the teachers that I've worked with, this has transformed collaborative planning from a rushed, poorly executed activity to a truly streamlined and effective component of instructional planning. The hour spent together in a room is now a chance to explore and outline effective cross-curricular or shared lesson planning, while teachers can add their piece to the shared document later in the day from the comfort of their home. A few minutes nightly to update the document to reflect the day's accomplishments and any adjustments to the next day's plan keeps everyone up-to-date and on the same page.

Here's what some real, live teachers say about using Google to collaborate:

• "I love collaborating with Google Drive because it is an easy way to stay immediately up-to-date, and split the workload between teachers. We can share information and stay up to date on student data and behaviors with input from several teachers on a live document. My co-teacher can go in and add modifications, or copy and add a different version of a document."- Science in the City
• "My entire social science department uses Google Drive to share lesson plans and teaching resources. We organize them by subject and unit so they are easy to find. We also use Google Docs to write down our weekly collaboration minutes and we also have included a list of common formative assessments. This will make it easy for teachers in the future to access all the information as well as our principal."- History Chalk Talk
• "Having a shared Google Drive allows our PLC to share resources that we might not have time to share otherwise. It also gives us a chance to share our strengths and learn from each other!"- Teaching Teens in the 21st
• "For our PLCs, I create a Google document in Google drive and type the standards that we'll be covering the following week. Then each person on my teams goes into the document and "signs up" for a standard and brings ideas and lessons to share directly related to the SOLs."- The Teaching Oasis
• "It would honestly change my world as at ITRT at 4 different elementary schools if I we didn't have access to the collaboration feature within Google Drive. Since I am at each school once a week, Google allows for me to plan quality lessons with my teachers so we are both on the same page about the lesson we will co-teacher together. Being able to collaborate with other ITRTs on my team is extremely helpful, especially since we don't get to see each other often."- The Techie Teacher 
• "Through using Google Drive my co-workers and I can share lessson plans, to do lists, student data, and pass notes during professional development .  We use this tool to share activities easily even when we are home with a sick child or out of state at a conference."- Learning Ahoy!

Are you using Google Drive as a tool for collaborative planning? How is it going? Tell me in the comments.