If you're new here, you may want to try my weekly newsletter. Thanks for visiting!
A new term a new start and I kicked off the first few days of the term with an upper key stage 2 assembly on Thursday morning. I wanted to talk to the children about the prospects of a new term and what it meant to us all. Twitter was buzzing with well wishes as the US schools returned at the same time as most English schools, so I thought I would invite my network to help contribute to the assembly with their own thoughts about the new term and the new beginning we were all about to take.
I asked for responses from my network a few hours before the assembly and then retweeted with a quarter of an hour or so to go and was so grateful, as I alwaysam, to receive teachers thoughts from around the world.
After talking in the assembly about new beginnings for some people in my own family, I invited the children to explain their feelings and reflections on the first few days of school. We discussed what they were looking forward to and any apprehensions they had.
With a global twist I shared the thoughts from my network on the beginning of a new term and what it meant to new people. I finished with Ian Usher’s reflection that a new term is “like a fresh piece of paper with nothing bad from last term written on it.” They really liked that thought and it ended the assembly on a positive hopeful note. Thanks to Ian and everyone who helped it was lovely to be able share your reflections in our assembly.
Why not ask for reflections on a topic or assembly subject from your own network and give the children a global perspective.
Tomorrow sees us begin our Autumn term here in Nottinghamshire, England – most of the English primary schools will be back by next week at least. I just wanted to explain the road ahead for me in terms of the ways I will be using technology in the classroom this year, my classroom cornerstones. These tools/ideas will be sticking around for the course of the year, either because they have become part of the fabric of how we support learning in the case of the first two, or they are areas I want to explore the potential in more depth, the latter two.
Group media collaboration tool: Voicethread – this has become such a great tool to use in supporting children with speaking and listening. Beyond the basic group collaboration, last year I saw children grow in confidence due to the protracted use of refined talk and voice recording in Voicethread. Children who would usually not utter a thing when in a whole class situation were more willing to contribute and speak in front of the class. There is a lot going on when a child decides to record a comment in a Voicethread, most importantly for me is the fact that they willingly and independently vet and refine what they say. We will be looking to consolidate the use of Voicethread in the classroom this year, especially in the use of peer feedback in the writing process.
Office 2.0:Google Apps/Docs – I carefully documented the steps we took last term to use Docs in the classroom and I have even had the opportunity to contribute to the Official Google Docs blog in a post about introducing online collaboration. We will continue to use Docs as a cornerstone technology in our classrooms this coming year. The classes we were with last year have moved onto Year 6 and I look forward to seeing their work with the tool continue and the teachers alongside them develop their knowledge and understanding of the technology. Last year we did not have the opportunity in the Autumn and Spring term to use Docs so we will have a whole bunch of new opportunities to utilise the tool to support learning in the best way. I am looking to use Google Forms more and to reach beyond the school in bigger international collaborative projects – please let me know if you have a similar age class using Docs.
Timeline tool:Mnemograph – Last year I stumbled upon this great timeline tool just as we were finishing our Ancient Egyptian unit. We will repeat this unit, beginning before Christmas and I am pleased to be working with Will and Michael from Mnemograph in some development of new features which will perhaps make it easier for a whole class to work with the tool. If you have not had an opportunity to see it in action I would strongly suggest you take a look – it is very useful for Ancient history as it is one of the few online timeline tools that allows you to go back that far. I am looking forward to unleashing my class on Mnemograph and putting it through it’s paces this year.
Class blog:????– I have yet to decide about the tool that we will use this year for our class blog. I know that it doesn’t matter a great deal and it is more about the content. 2 years ago we ran a class blog for the Year 6 class I was with and found we had problems remembering usernames and passwords and the whole process took too long. I have been exploring the use of Posterous – a blogging tool that just needs an email sending to a simple address and that is it. It deals really well with all of the media a classroom could possibly throw at it. Of course a Blogger account has a similar email address to send updates too – still undecided about the best way to go yet.
I think there is enough there to keep me out of trouble for the year to come (there is of course about 10 other things I didn’t mention) – what are you focusing on this year in your classroom?What will be new for you? What are you going to consolidate and explore in greater depth?
I have been thinking and writing about the use of Google tools within the classroom for a while and so I thought I would record some ideas for improvements that have been buzzing around in my head. Although I use the tools personally, the improvements are to do with the use Docs and Apps in general within the classroom, how they affect a teacher’s organisation, the ways that children interact with the tools, missing tools and other possibilities.
Ad-free Blogger accounts as a service within Ed Apps – a blogging platform as part of the overall Ed Apps services would provide an easy way to generate blogging accounts. It would allow children to use just a single login to access docs, gmail and their blog. Along with this the children should be able to click publish to blog from within a doc – sending their work to their own blog.
Integration of Google Notebook in Ed Apps – one of the most powerful tools Google has developed. It certainly has a great deal of unexplored potential within the classroom and is notable by it’s absence. If I were to ask children to research together online this is the tool I would use as a first step, not Docs – they would export their notes to Docs and not work there until research has been gathered. Why use Docs when you can work in an application fit for purpose? Some previous thoughts on Google Notebook and it being missing from Ed Apps.
Grab a copy / Templates – a simple link for each Doc that allows you to get your own copy without the collaborators. The ability to create a template out of any Doc. In the past when I want a whole class of children to work on a certain document and for them to have their own copy I would use a MS Word Template. The children would open it and they would have their own copy – the process is trickier in Docs because it often leads to duplicated documents everywhere when the children click “Include the Collaborators”! Imagine this times 30! 60! Templates are already in use and soo we will be able to make our own, and I hope to be taking advantage of this new feature to hand out work soon.
Audio support for docs – marking work could be very different if a teacher could add a simple audio comment. Along with the different ways to mark text a simple audio file would surmount to a much greater personal style of marking. Children could respond in kind regarding the comments you have made via audio. We would not just be repeating what we do on paper but changing it, challenging it, reinventing it.
View Filter signal – a way to signal to a user the different type of filter currently being used in the Docs home page. Many children think that they have lost documents because they are unaware of the current view. They may have clicked on a folder or on a type of doc filter, without it being made very clear – perhaps something next to the More Actions button on the top bar in the Docs home.
Not just “Shared With” but “Shared By” – when the children hand me a document, a piece of work that they have completed they share it with me and it appears in my Docs home list. It would be very useful to be able to filter the Docs owned by different children in my class. I could then compare a variety of Docs from the same child, perhaps a series of pieces of work or a collection for a single unit. Even better, for portfolios, would be the ability to then export multiple docs at once – two clicks and you have exported all of the child’s docs.
Remove the flicker – when you are working with someone else’s document and it autosaves your screen flicks up to the top. Annoying and the children found it a little off putting when in the midst of writing.
Add chat feature into Docs – it’s there in Spreadsheets and when you view a Presentation – children are very motivated by IM and it would prove a useful feature within Docs.
Archiveable chat – a great feature currently available in Spreadsheets and Presentations but nothing can be archived – it would be useful if this was tied into Google Chat/Email chat (archived their) the chat could be archived for the owner of the document. As a teacher I would like to be able to export it into a Doc as a permanent record of the discourse. We have used it here and here to good effect to support learning going on in the classroom, its just a shame we currently cannot archive it.
Export Form data to different Docs – we can get a simple summary of the form data and I am aware that this will soon have a wider range of features including different graph and chart types, but it would be very useful to also be able to export some or all of the summary to a new doc/presentation/ssheet. After all once data has been collected we want to analyse, discuss and present that information.
Gears as a local backup for Docs – in an ideal world my students should be able to access their Google Docs on a local level even if the internet has gone down, just as you can with Google Gears on a private account. No internet = no Google Docs, and although we had only about 2 days of troubles last year with our internet connection it would be useful to have our eggs in more than one basket.
In my opinion the two most important changes would be the inclusion of Google Notebook as it is a lovely little research application and the support of audio within Document commenting. (And of course a platform for blogging as part of the Ed Apps package would also be great)
What do you think of the list? What would you like to see altered, changed, developed or improved that would make a difference in the classroom?
Google Forms is an excellent tool for the classroom, and this collection of Google Forms Templates from 2008 has always proven popular. I hope you continue to be inspired by the ideas here.
I have created example forms for each of the different topics, follow the links in each of the ten sections.
1 ) Get to know your class with this Google Forms Template
Use this form to gather some indication from your new class about their likes and dislikes, their favourite lessons or after school clubs they enjoy. It will help you to build your relationships with children as you quickly learn more about them. Get your copy.
2 ) Emotion graph
An emotion graph is a simple line graph comparing a range of happiness to sadness against different points (time) in a story or film. Graphing the emotional ups and down within a story helps children visualise the whole story differently.
Use a Google Form to gather the children’s responses to different parts of any linear narrative, written or visual. We used it here in a film narrative literacy unit. You can read a more detailed explanation of how to generate the line graph from the form here. Get your copy.
3 ) Spelling test
For your weekly spelling test, use a simple 1-10 or 1-20 numbered Google Forms Templates (with a name question too, of course) and ask the children to type in their answers as you read out the list of words. Once these are submitted, apply a formula to judge if they are correct or not, and it becomes self-marking.
Steve Kirkpatrick had this brainwave a while back, so check out his excellent post for more information about setting up the spreadsheet. Danny also added in his comment that using the font Wingdings for smiley faces is an excellent idea, although this font is not available in Google Spreadsheets. Get your copy.
4 ) Comprehension questions
I spent quite a bit of time exploring reading comprehension resources for a class set of laptops. We could create a Google Form to collate the children’s comprehension answers in one place for any given text. You could also share the answers with the class to review what their peers are doing.
This could be a formalised assessment of their understanding of a text or something more informal to start class discussions. Again Steve has grabbed this idea by the horns and tried it with his kids – well worth a look, especially at his thoughtful comments and lessons learned. Get your copy.
5 ) Weekly reading record
The children in our school have a reading diary to record information about times that they read during the week. They take it home as well as using it at school. A form could be created by the children as a place to enter data about their reading.
I hear “I haven’t got my reading diary” so many times during the year; this way, they have no excuses and can access it from any computer. Alternatively, you could also set up a class form to gather together everyone’s records. Get your copy.
6 ) Maths data handling
Perhaps the easiest to pick up and run with, the idea of using a form to gather together maths data handling information. The form could be a simple way of collecting information about the class – shoe size, eye colour etc.
It is obviously about what you do with the data that counts. Still, there is no reason why children couldn’t design and implement their forms – with the attached spreadsheet for analysis – as part of independent data investigations. Get your copy.
7 ) Guided reading record
As part of the old literacy hour in England, we participate in small, focused group reading sessions. They have guided sessions usually 15-20 minutes long, and we talk and work on a piece of text that is relevant to the work going on in that unit.
Sometimes small written tasks are completed, or it may just be a speaking and listening activity. It is widely practised in English primary schools, and this form could act as a class record for those sessions. Get your copy.
8 ) Google Forms Templates to check for prior learning
Use a form to assess what the children already know about any given topic that you are beginning. The form could be a formalised assessment with specific questions about the subject, or it could be more general and open for the children to explain what they know.
Either way, such an assessment would allow you to understand better the current level of knowledge the children have about a topic. Students could return this same form at the end of the unit of work to help review what they have learned. Get your copy.
9 ) Library book review
We have a little corner of our classroom dedicated to our library. There is a broad range of fiction and non-fiction books for the children to enjoy whenever they want.
This form could be a simple way of collecting children’s thoughts about what they read. The children in the class could use it as a reference to help them choose a book to read—a simple and easy way to collate book reviews. Get your copy.
10 ) Learning success
This is one of the ten ideas I would most like to explore this year as we continue to use Google Docs as part of our tech toolbox. Use a form to assess the relative success of learning during a single lesson or after a topic. Invite the children to evaluate their confidence after practising a lesson on one of the written multiplication methods.
The form would collate the views of all of the class very quickly and allow you to make a quick judgment in terms of pupil feedback about whether to consolidate what has taken place, start afresh, or move on. We make our learning targets for the lesson so clear these days, along with work scrutiny, dialogue with the students; a generic student response form would allow you to judge the lesson’s success further.
This is very much dependant on the quick and easy availability of a computer in the classroom – this, after all, should be a small 2-minute task as part of a plenary. If the lesson involves using the computers, then that is easier – but if it does not, perhaps a handful is scattered at the side of the room for students to go to at the end of the task or as directed.
Of course, the students completing such a form as if it were second nature to them would be what you aim for – so the laptop, form and technology disappear, and you are left with a lucid evaluation from your students. Get your copy.
I hope that you have found Google Forms Templates to inspire you here, or perhaps you can use these straight away. If you have not had time to explore Google Forms, it is most definitely worth a look; if you have time, drop me a note saying how you got on with your ideas.
FREE Infographic of the Google Forms Templates – great for sharing with you team!
Download your copy of the resource by subscribing to my small but perfectly formed newsletter, the Dialogic Learning Weekly – ideas and insight about Innovation, Leadership and Learning.
More Ideas
Here are more than 70 different ideas to keep you going.
