Many of our teachers still use Safari as their browser of choice at our school. There's nothing wrong with this BUT, as a teacher who regularly uses Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Keep & Forms as well as Gmail, there's a lot of advantages for switching to Chrome. Over the next week or so I am going to try to show a number of ways in which Google Chrome consistently proves to be a better choice - for me anyway! - in the classroom. Extensions are little add-ons which make your browser experience better for you. I have several extensions in Google Chrome that I would not - and could not - live without.... For more great extension suggestions check out the awesome Kasey Bell's "Shake Up Learning" post here http://www.shakeuplearning.com/chrome-database/. Tab Scissors and Tab Glue: two awesome extensions that allow you to split your browser so you have 2 windows side by side - a great way to compare sites, work in two windows at once, copy and paste information etc. And, when you're done, you 'glue' them back together with the click of a button.
Session Buddy: This awesome extension allows you to save and share a set of tabs very easily with the click of a button. Think about the times where you're doing research or conferencing with a student or opened up a plethora of flight comparison websites and you need to shut down your computer or go into another meeting. With Session Buddy it is very easy to save or share a 'session'. Black Menu: For Google Apps users, this is a life-changer. From one button, you have instant access to all your Docs AND all your favourite Google Apps. Definitely worth a look! Google Calendar: Easily view and add events to your Google Calendar There are MANY more Extensions that are designed just to make your life easier - just go to the Chrome Web Store and try out a few - you won't regret it...! It is important to note that both Safari & Firefox also have extensions - I just like Chrome better :)
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Many of our teachers still use Safari as their browser of choice at our school. There's nothing wrong with this BUT, as a teacher who regularly uses Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Keep & Forms as well as Gmail, there's a lot of advantages for switching to Chrome. Over the next week or so I am going to try to show a number of ways in which Google Chrome consistently proves to be a better choice - for me anyway! - in the classroom. 1. Accessing Google Drive offline I work in a school in the depths of Africa which is currently dealing with 'loadshedding', 8 hours a day of no electricity - which in many cases means no internet. Google Chrome allows you to access - and edit - files offline through Google Chrome - you just have to check a box in settings first... :) For the past two years, this has been the challenge with our 1:1 program: no way of uploading to ManageBac using the student device. This meant that they had to figure out the loooong work-around of emailing it to themselves and then accessing a desktop or laptop from school/home and uploading it from there. Before Christmas, I discovered 'Doc Uploads' an affordable (it was $2 but now I see it is $6!) app that allows you to upload files and upload through its own browser... A life changer for a 1:1 iPad school that uses Managebac! More recently a Grade 8 student showed me a new way too. It is now possible - through ManageBac itself, to upload direct from Google Drive - from the Google Chrome Browser App only. This is an awesome upgrade which is VERY useful for our 1:1 iPad school that uses ManageBac AND Google Apps for Education. Good news all round!
Here are some tools, resources & inspirations to support your learning and teaching through Science...
In order to share, I am using a tool called lessonpaths.com - let me know what you think!
Create your own Playlist on LessonPaths!
So when better to start - the early hours of New Years Day because the neighbours are keeping me awake (why can everyone else sleep through it!?)!
My plan is to post more regularly this year - I'm going to try using this rediscovered tool to visualise the resources... Let me know what you think - of the resources and the tool!
Create your own Playlist on LessonPaths!
Doug Peterson of 'Off the Record' fame created this amazing Symbaloo of loads of creative commons image resources. This is a perfect go-to resource for students who need high quality images. I decided to take these sites and add them to a Google Custom Search to make it easier for students to search for specific images - I hope Doug doesn't mind! I have embedded it below - not perfect but a start - let me know of any suggestions. How can we improve this? There are SO many options and it is very confusing... Here are three of the most common places to store in the cloud - and one recent discovery... :) Another excellent meeting - in fact, as Syed rightly said, it was more like a conference with so much sharing of excellent practice across the network - thank you to all that were present, apologies to those who attempted to join my failed Google Hangout and, above all, many thanks to the generous hosts at The Westminster School - Dubai... Facebook: groups and security settingsScroll down to see another post regarding this along with a comparison between the advantages of Facebook Groups, Pages or a regular Blog... Please click here or scan the QR Code to the right to request to join our ICT Network Facebook Group Please
Sites created by us!(a work in progress - send me the ones I missed!) Other amazing sites and resources(a work in progress - send me the ones I missed!)
This post has been a long time coming! Even though I feel that there is a lot of information out there to support teachers and students with this, many of us still get it wrong. We BELIEVE that we are secure and safe but, especially with regular Facebook changes & updates, we are not!
Checking - and rechecking - your Settings As a general guideline, you should only have 'friends' be able to see your updates. A great way to check is to 'view as' so you can see what different people AND the general public can see when they view your timeline. I was shocked to see some extremely inappropriate spam on my timeline when I 'viewed as public' and was able to rectify the situation immediately. I strongly recommend that you 'view as public' regularly just to be sure... Another important note is that if you upload from another device, the settings may differ allowing everyone to see photos that you have uploaded - worth checking! Should I use a FB Page, a FB Group OR a blog? Information summarized from this source and from my own thoughts. Please contact me if you are unsure of what to choose!
For more information, click here
Someone flagged an eSchool News post from way back in April, "Ten of the best virtual field trips" written by Meris Stansbury. It reminded me of a couple more go-to sites when I want to virtually explore the world - the next best thing to actually being there! Here are THREE online sites that are visually stunning (watch out though - these sites are genuine time stealers but are so worth it!) and can be used as a teaching resource in most subject areas... 1. Airpano
2. 360Cities
Google Maps - Street View
Enjoy rediscovering our world...!
Hundreds of thousands of apps of varying quality - and no clue how to find the best... Does this sound like you? Here are several great places to start! Even though I teach at a true International School (more than 81 nationalities represented!) with generally very well-traveled students, I find it unbelievable how little they know about the world around them. World Geography Games is a great site to practice and consolidate these skills - have a go - it's addictive! Need some other sites - these are two other great sites that I love!
Another successful meeting kindly hosted by Mario and the rest of the team at Winchester School Dubai (Oud Metha) – thanks again for your hospitality! We had 13 attendees in total - an increase in the last meeting…! Minutes:
Syed from The Westminster School, Dubai enthusiastically shared his iBooks Author created interactive 'textbook'. This prompted a lot of discussion about the use of iPads in the classroom especially in a BYOT environment AND the limitations of having device specific resources as opposed to cross-device options like Adobe DPS. Some interesting discussions... :) Google Drive, once again, was a highlight of discussions - from the youngest to the oldest students! We discussed the sharing and collaboration features, auto-save, the ability to access - and edit - from any device and many other positives from our experiences. Tony shared a Process Journal from his school (created as a Google Presentation) where students could add images, videos as well as written work in a format created by the teacher. So basically an online workbook - amazing potential! Any Other Business?
NEXT MEETING: Wednesday 29th January - anyone like to host? Let me know! Welcome! AGENDA/MINUTES: 1. Introductions: great to see you all. I hope you found it to be a productive and useful first meeting of the year! We had representatives from Winchester-Dubai, Westminster, GWA-Dubai, New Millennium School, Winchester-Jebel Ali... An involved and enthusiastic mix of educators with lots to share! Please leave a comment to share more thoughts, ideas and resources that I may have missed... :) 2. Wishes for the year: - what do YOU want to achieve? - what would you like to get out of the ICT Network Meetings this year? - how should we share our work with the wider community? 3. Sharing: Great job guys! Lots of sharing! 4. Next meeting (Tuesday 26th November) will be held at GEMS Winchester School, Dubai (Oud Metha) AND... one last thing: the easy way to make the GLG work for you!
Thanks again for joining us! Please leave a comment to share more thoughts, ideas and resources that I may have missed from this session... :)
There are many more tools which do a similar job - like Pic Collage, Fotor & Tagxedo - Click here for a previous post with other similar tools!
There are times in your life where a life-changing tool comes along AND as a tech specialist, this is one of those moments! One of our Science teachers (full credit to him - thank you Allan!) showed me the 'users' feature in Google Chrome settings (I am not sure how long it has been there?!) - if like me, you have multiple accounts for different purposes this is going to change YOUR life too! Watch the short tutorial below: I get really frustrated when it presentations take longer to prepare for than they do to actually present. With the following tools, that no longer needs to be the case - these LITERALLY take MINUTES to create professional looking, high quality products... the only slow part is uploading the photos - but remember you can resize them first...! With a ComputerAccessible from your browser, www.fotor.com is a 'no registration required' photo presenting tool. It is VERY easy to use and there are lots of features to keep you busy. Throwing together these photos took less than 60 seconds. With an iPadA colleague in school showed me this yesterday. Since then I have probably already made TEN collages and none of them took more than 60 seconds! Pic Collage (also available on Android) is the easiest - and most effective photo presenting app I have ever used. Special MentionsOf course, we can't avoid other great photo editing and presenting tools.... My other favourites are Animoto (be sure to sign up for an education account).
What am I missing? What do you use...? I am presenting once again at the GWA PD Share Day. Last time I looked at some of my favourite Web2ools:
This time I want to look at a few other great Web2ools as well as revisit some old favourites... :) Google Drive has SO many possibilities and many GWA teachers are starting to experiment with it's features. Edmodo is a great venue for a 'chat room' with your students and/or parents. It is completely controllable and private to who YOU want to share it with Padlet is such a simple concept and so easy to use and set up. It's basically an online 'corkboard' that students and teachers can share ideas and answers I just found Fotor a few days ago thanks to Richard Byrne at FreeTech4Teachers (great site by the way!). Looks amazing for presenting photos simply and effectively... And here are some more GREAT tools to experiment with: Create your own Playlist on MentorMob! Time to share some of my favourite FREE Maths Web2ools... These range from the traditional skill & drill practice to independent learning sites and resources for the flipped classroom - let me know if I have missed a good site... :)
I love trying out new Web2ools BUT when I have a 3 month backlog (yes it's holiday time - I FINALLY have time to catch up!) it's not so fun. There are so many great tools and resources to try! I wonder if you could help...? Below are two ways to view the resources that I am experimenting with, 1) Using Urli.st and 2) Using MentorMob... Which tools tickle your tastebuds? Which tools leave a bad taste in your mouth? Why? Please comment below! Urli.stMentorMob Create your own Playlist on MentorMob! Today I presented to a group of PYP & MYP teachers and leaders from across the Middle East about integrating Web2.0 Tools (Click here to find out more). As nerve-racking as it was, I think it went well...! We explored a variety of Web2.0 Tools including Prezi, Padlet, Animoto, Tagxedo and Socrative among others. Below is the Prezi that I created to introduce the session: Youtube has become one of my primary sources of information; if I want to find out how to do something - how to change a tyre, how to fix my iPhone etc, Youtube has the answer. Increasingly, students are making the same choice - bypassing Google to find cheats for Minecraft and other such things. Even in class, Youtube often has the perfect clip within a longer video. Below are some essential resources to support your use of Youtube SafeShareSafeshare is a great way to blank out all the extra stuff around the video - like the comments and the video suggestions. Just paste think into Safeshare and you are done :) KeepTubeKeeptube allows you to download Youtube clips. This is especially useful in an unreliable internet connection OR if you want to reuse in your own video - after correctly citing your sources of course...! :) TubeChopTubechop means that you can select the best bit from a Youtube video and create a link to that part - perfect for removing all the bad bits! There are so many Web Tools are out there that need to be shared and benefited by more teachers. I find mine by following gurus like Richard Byrne, Larry Ferlazzo and Jacqui Murray...
Urli.st is one way to help you share - or at least present the useful sites in a very easy way - and it is a quick and simple process to set up. I just wish I could embed it so you can see it in action - until then click on the link below! Try it - you might like it :) |
About MeHello, I am Tony Potts, Primary Assistant Principal at the American International School of Lusaka, Zambia. Please feel free to ask me ANY questions...
I was previously a tech integration specialist, ManageBac Coordinator, iPad Coach & ICT/MYP Design Teacher in the same school and before this I was the PK-12 Director of Digital Learning, ICT Coordinator, teacher and technology integration specialist at GEMS World Academy, Dubai. Blog RollHere are some of the sites that I have been involved in creating:
Digital Citizenship Little Bytes GWA Dubai Tony Potts If you would like to receive a notification if this page is updated, please click here
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My 'favourites!'This is a Top 5 list of blogs that I follow on my Google Reader - so where I get to know what I know - HIGHLY recommended:
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