Tis the Season for Scripts

Time is our most valuable commodity. We often forget that in the push for creative lessons, there is much creativity to be found in efficiency. If we become creative leaves us more valuable time to invest in improving how we teach and how we learn.

After attending Jennie Magiera’s (Teaching like its 2999) Google Scripts session at IntegratED SF, I found myself realizing how many of the actions we do each and every day that could be automated in order to give us time to delve deeper into our passions.

As the district technology coach, I meet with teachers throughout the day. This poses a scheduling nightmare, with long email chains back and forth figuring out times that work for both parties. Therefore, I wanted to automate setting up meetings. My first attempt looked something like this: every time a person wanted to meet with me, I they filled out a form with three possible meetings times.  Then, I would email them back, add the event to my calendar and confirm with them.

As you can see, this was still taking a considerable amount of time even with some automation. So, inspired by Jennie’s session, I created a form, ran Andrew Stillman’s Formmule script on it to create a calendar merge as well as an automated email. I embedded the form into a Google Site with my calendar next to it, set to busy/free view. This way people would be able to look at my calendar to see when I was busy or free, and then fill out the form to set up an appointment with me. Additionally, I wanted the email to cc the principal of the school the teacher selected. However, I didn’t want them to have to type in the principal’s email. Therefore, I learned, through extensive YouTube video watching, how to perform a vLookup function nested in an array function so that it would work in the Google form spreadsheet (check out my how to video!)

Bottom line, it took me a while to automate, but now it works like a dream. My meetings are automatically added to my calendar. Principals are in better communication with their staff so they can follow up with people who have met with me on a variety of topics. Finally,  it is easier for those setting up the meetings because they simply choose a time they’d like to have.

Take a look at the following ideas that came to me as I extrapolated application of scripts in other areas of improving efficiency. Two great sites to check out for scripts are Jay Atwood’s and Andrew Stillman’s:

Administrators scheduling meetings with staff:

Taking this further, I thought about administrators and how they spend a needless amount of time bouncing emails back and forth with teachers to set up meetings. Why not use the format I just talked about for scheduling meetings with staff?

Administrators giving authentic feedback:

Another big issues for administrators is giving authentic and timely feedback to teachers. Many administrators drop by rooms and want a quick and seamless way to provide quality feedback. I worked with an administrator to create a simple form on Google forms linked with autocrat. She and I developed a quick certificate with call out fields that corresponded to the form. Autocrat is able to fill in the fields on the certificate based on the principal’s answers to the form. Then, there is a quick personalized email sent out via autocrat as well as a nifty PDF certificate, the spreadsheet contains the email template and links to certificates.

Signing up for multi use spaces

With many teachers at school sites and quite a few events, scheduling the use of multi use spaces at a campus can be daunting. Rather than good old paper and pencil, by using Formmule, we can do a calendar event merge. Couple that with a Google form where teachers or administrators fill out the date and time while cross checking with the space calendar, and you now have an automated way to take care of scheduling. Formmule will add the event to a shared calendar for that space as well as email the person in charge of managing that space that someone has requested to use it.

Professional Development Choices

Running a professional development session? Need to limit the number of people who can sign up for certain choices? Try using Formranger and a simple script that will allow you to close choices on a form when enough people have signed up.

Document Ownership and Organization

Have kids who accidentally delete items or forget to share them with you? Check out Doctopus which is a virtual copier that allows you to choose who get a copy of a document while keeping you as the owner.

Doctopus add on for inserting rubrics and grading work--Goobric

Working with Doctopus is fun and exciting, but grading is also an important aspect that would be great to add onto this. Goobric works seamlessly with Doctopus as a way to insert a pre-made spreadsheet rubric into a Google Doc.

Grading a form with conditional formatting

Fubaroo is a quick way to grade multiple choice google forms, but another nifty way to grade them as well is with conditional formating. Check out Jennie Magiera’s YouTube video on grading forms with simple color rules.

Mission Project Revised

Source: Creative Commons, Flickr, Ken Lund

Any person who has grown up in California, remembers the sugar cube mission project in 4th grade. Now, it might have been made of some other substance, but for the most part the project was always similar. Visit a mission, take some pictures, create a diagram, discuss the history, etc. Many kids today are moving through the same motions even though technology allows us to do so much more.

Today, we can simply type into a browser the name of a mission and we are given all the historical facts we'd ever need to know. I challenge you then, what is the purpose of recreating a mission if we can simply look up the facts? We need students to be applying knowledge and facts to something new. We need kids to be building missions on Mars. Read on to see my redesigned mission project:

Mission to …

Urgent message * Urgent Message * Urgent Message

Dear capable cadet,

If you choose to read on, then you are bound to and you solemnly swear to dedicate your entire brain, effort, and philosophy to an unforeseen challenge that will take you on a journey, that is unknown to any 4th grader to ever have walked the planet.

It is a period of exploration, of settlements, and of uncharted corners of the universe. The Wyosnick Enterprise is planning multiple explorations to settle and to convert others to the pillars of philosophy that we stand by. It is a challenge that needs capable minds to undertake it.

Below, are the chronicles of the missions. Choose wisely and report back to base as you progress throughout your journey. You will be tested and tried. You must be resilient. You must be strong.

Your mission is to determine where you would place a mission in the present time or in the future. Should you choose to take on this task, you must look to the history of our ancestors to determine what qualifications a mission needs, why missions were built, why or why not a mission should be build, the purpose they serve, etc. History shapes the present and determines the future. Apply your knowledge of the past and decide the most ideal location for a mission.

You must establish its design, create a model, write up a proposal based on historical facts, and analyze the word mission. Why am I sending you on a mission to build a mission?

Most of all you must be ready to justify your location and to justify the building of your mission in the first place. Think about the ethical implications of building missions and what that means for the indigenous people as well as those who are settling and exploring that universe.

Mission Checklist:

• Analysis of the word mission as a noun and a verb
• Historical research of missions in general
• Historical research of a specific mission as an influence on your task
• Location of present or future mission
• Plan of present or future mission
• User profile of mission goers, workers etc. displayed as a social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc.)
• Diagram of present or future mission
• Explanation of historical influences in paper or video or podcast form
• Ethical debate on validity of missions, stance explained.

Spark, Whimsy -- Learning simply to Learn

Space Models at Brick Fest, Flickr via Creative Commons

Young children are encouraged to be whimsical and imaginative and to always ask why. Students in younger grades look with awe upon the lifecycle of a butterfly and draw endless pictures of colorful circles that they truly believe resemble their parents.

Then a few years pass. Times tables are memorized and we increase the content we teach and begin to instill a sense of conformity and pressure in our students that focuses on attaining success measured by society. It is no surprise that the imagination of our students changes to reflect a stale, stagnant state because they are learning what others want them to learn. Yet, our students are still creative underneath a shell of academic standards. However, we don't give them the opportunities to show the whimsical, inquisitive nature deep within them.

As teachers, we suffer from much the same ill-fated trajectory our students do. Believing we can change the world as a young teacher, we come to the first year of our teaching careers with an energy that feeds into our innovative lessons. Years pass and we are met with more strict standards, more programs to teach, less time to teach them, and more students, many of whom are bored and unengaged with the curriculum since they are being told what to learn and how to learn it.

Think of topics that you find interesting. Think of what you'd want to learn in school. Now think of what you teach. Think of how you teach it. Ask yourself, would I want to learn that way? Would I want to spend my afternoons at home doing that? A recent article came out about a revolutionary way of learning that focuses on engaging students with what they are interested in. Joshua Davis writes for Wired, "How a radical new teaching method could unleash a generation of geniuses." In it he explores a variety of progressive philosophies on learning.

Peter Gray, research professor at Boston college, is quoted by Joshua Davis as stating, " 'We’re teaching the child that his questions don’t matter, that what matters are the questions of the curriculum. That’s just not the way natural selection designed us to learn. It designed us to solve problems and figure things out that are part of our real lives, ' " which raises some key issues of institutionalized schooling. The whole purpose of school should be to teach kids a love of learning, a desire to understand the unknown, and the ability to apply what they know to questions they have. Ultimately its about the spark that fires up their curiosity thus raising their engagement in the classroom. It should not be about what other people think they need to know.

So, what if homework was filled with activities that truly sparked the curiosity of our children, thus supporting that their questions matter. What if students rushed to school the next day asking why, why, why? What if students eagerly awaited the next lesson rather than day dreaming through it?

A simple task like watching a video about space could be that spark for a child. A spark that could change the trajectory of a student's life, assisting them in realizing dreams they have. Take a look at these amazing videos on the International Space Station by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.

Here are two class work or homework documents I’ve put together, one for primary grades and one for upper grades.

Take on the challenge of giving assignments that you’d want to spend time on. If you wouldn’t want to do it, why would your kids?

Inspired and want more? Additional resources can be found at Ramsey Musallam’s Cycles of Learning blog that discusses in depth the use of video as a curiosity spark for initializing a love for learning.

Candles

We noticed that one of the candles almost always went out sooner than the other.  

The one that was higher went out even if it was the longer burning candle.

When the two candles were in two separate jars, they went out at the same time.

We wondered if it was the way the candles were made.  We were puzzled.

Candle experiment

Candle experiment

We discovered that the top candle went out first followed by the shorter candle. The tall candle went out in 4 seconds. The short candle went out in 12 seconds. We think oxygen is forced to the bottom as the smoke/heat rose. We talked about stopping and dropping when there is a fire. Also to not open a door that would allow more oxygen into the room that has a fire. The procedures for a fire makes more sense since oxygen is heavier than the gas produced by fire.


Sent from my iPad

The handwriting dilemma

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eethompson/2143724448/sizes/z/in/photolist-4gr9Am-4gr9Y3-4gs649-4gs68d-4gziVf-4qc5EB-4C7kQe-4Crr1f-4HAhxX-4Jrx5R-4Jrxa6-4JvL3o-4QhtyV-4Qpa9k-4SDoRa-57DUxE-5cz5PN-5eRFEU-5hUDRR-5kDyD9-5weuAr-5zbkKW-5EGj3c-5HvZoM-5HAjrQ-5HAkj3-5TCFZY-61nQq5-68oPVo-6nobb5-6K7SWF-6K7TqH-6KbeKG-6KxXj4-6LoTe8-73JFK4-776vPa-77arAs-7u6vxg-7uapM9-8a2fw8-b9Fppr-bpUTSM-8rVDfK-7Tnjp9-8qyy7j-fVqVCP-fb8wgd-aUiJcr-d8NhyJ-9jb1Wh/

The cycle of typing and tapping on the phone, keyboard, etc. As I settle into bed, I realize I haven't "written" anything with a pen and paper, all day. My gut races from excitement to terror as I realize there is simply no need to put pen to paper.

With the rapid increase of communication through digital devices, does it matter if we write or not? Is the future of a penned signature a fingerprint?

Common Core has removed the mandatory teaching of cursive.  A few articles highlight the importance of teaching cursive in school, In Defense of Cursive and Should Schools Still Teach Cursive. Yet, hardly anyone uses cursive as a primary form of writing. The opposite argument can be raised. If no one uses cursive anymore, then we shouldn’t teach it (clearly that is why CCSS removed it). So, with the disbandment of third graders’ write of passage, the future of penmanship as a whole appears to be misty and murky.

If writing with a pen is no longer typical, then do we even need to teach it in schools? Rather than writing in kindergarten, should kids just learn to type? Can we even extend that to touch typing on a screen rather than keyboarding?

Historically, penmanship was an art. From the Constitution, to love letters, penmanship was and still is a way to physically connect with a person by knowing that his or her hand penned the words.

Email has rapidly replaced telegrams and letters. E-cards are the new birthday notes.

The word write means to mark (letters, words, or other symbols) on a surface, typically paper, with a pen, pencil, or similar implement. Lets think about that word, “typically”, and understand that we are at a crossroads of typical and mainstream. If write means to mark, then as we type we mark the computer screen and as we write with a pen we mark paper. Yes, typically we write on paper, but in mainstream we mark on the computer. So the work write really should now include the mainstream devices we use to write which are computers.

And on the subject of writing, why do we still teach a “friendly letter” format when adults hardly send handwritten letters anymore? What we should be emphasizing is how to craft simplistic email subject lines, digital signatures, and text messages.

Communication has dramatically shifted from physical to digital. I don’t even know what ringtone is on my phone because my primary way of communicating is via text. Phone messages go forgotten because I don’t know anyone who actually leaves me messages, so when someone does I don’t even remember to check them.

Writing in school needs to keep up with the culture of communication. If we are preparing students for life, then we need to think about how they will be communicating in the world when they are adults, and thus we need to teach foundational skills that will help them in that arena.

Yet, on the flip side, there is deep historical and personal value to the physical connection between hand, pen, and paper. Productivity expert David Allen states in the New York Times article by Phyllis Korkki In Defense of Paper, “ Its physical presence can be a goad to completing tasks, whereas computer files can easily be hidden and thus forgotten, he said. Some of his clients are returning to paper planners for this very reason, he added.”

Beautifully stated, co-founder of Levenger, Steve Leveen expresses to the New York Times, “ ‘Paper reminds us that ‘we’re physical beings, despite having to contend with an increasingly virtual world,’ he said. People complain that writing by hand is slow, but that can be good for thinking and creating, he said: ‘It slows us down to think and to contemplate and to revise and recast,’ " (In Defense of Paper by Phyllis Korkki, New York Times).

The crossroads are here. Handwriting is real and physical, ideas spring to life with effort. Typing is quick, efficient, and productive. We accomplish more with less, and neatness is automatic. Handwriting connects us to the historical past, and typing pushes us forward.

Kids will rely upon texting more than email in the future. Maybe the business deals they make will be artfully crafted with emojis and Vines.

Where does handwriting stand? Where does communication stand? And how do we teach our students and children to expertly use the communication tools available to them if we ourselves stick to the tools we know?

Multitouch Geometry iBook

Success! Last year after I attended the Apple Distinguished Educator workshop, I worked with my class to produce a multitouch book targeted towards younger audiences to teach foundational geometric vocabulary.

After quite a bit of time, it is finally published in the iBooks store.

I am very proud of my students for their hard work and effort to create such a valuable tool. Feel free to check out our 2D geometry book in the iBook store.

How to add a vlookup to your Google Form

Tutorial on how to add a vlookup to a Google Form. When you need to add a vlookup to a Google Form you must nest the vlookup formula within an array so that the formula will populate as users fill in the form. Google Forms adds rows rather than filling in existing rows in the spreadsheet which is why it is necessary to nest the vlookup within an array formula.

Spice up your resaerach projects

What skills are important?

• Determining high quality online sites
• Collecting information from a variety of sources
• Learning how to “Google”  and strategic searching
• Copyright laws (creative commons); A Creator’s Rights
• Citing your sources
• Google Advanced Search
• Sharing research in creative ways
• Applying the information you’ve collected to something new; understanding remixing

Digital Literacy lessons folded into research:

• Determining high quality online sites
• Strategic searching
• Citing your sources
• Understanding remixing
• A Creator’s Rights

Research Project Documents (Thanks to Julie Presant at Springer as well)

Project	Details/Skills	Tools	Resources
Newscast, history channel episode, documentary	Create a movie detailing the historic events in the form of a documentary or interview or breaking news story Movie making skills Writing a script Copyright Laws Sound editing	iMovie Popplet iThink	iMovie Guidelines Rock Your World, guide to producing documentaries
Podcast, interview with researcher	Interviewing skills Writing a script Writing insightful questions Sound editing Voice changes	Garageband	Author Interview Project
Research Paper		Google Docs	Research paper folder
Infographic	Using graphic design to convey information, teach copyright laws, explaining information succinctly, determining what really matters	Infogr Blog post on tools to create infographics	Amazing resource on infographics. Infographic Rubric
Website	Creating a website How to convey research in a user friendly way	Google sites
Create an app	Design an app that is based upon your research
Create a company	Pitch a start-up company idea based on your research and what need you are trying to fill, create a pitch to a venture capital company, create a prototype, utilize public speaking skills
Build a model	Create a 3d or 2d model based on your research and screencast yourself discussing it Do a fly through on Minecraft or a simple discussion on Screenchomp	Minecraft Screenr, jing, screenchomp	Article on Minecraft in Edu Minecraft and student learning Civics and Minecraft
Screencast	Create a video series explaining your topic to a younger child	Explain everything Educreations Screenchomp	Resource page on screencasting
Multi touch Book	Create a digital, interactive book about your research	iBooks Author	Example research project by a third grade class on the pioneers Pinterest page on iBooks Author in School
Blog	Blog as if you are the researcher finding and discovering information for the first time	Blogger
Comic Strip	Put together an account of the historical figure’s research in a comic told as a series of events	Comic Life Go Animate 4 Schools	Historical Novel example, but could be adapted to a more research based activity.
Social Media Profiles	Create a Facebook, Instagram, Google Plus account for a historic figure	PPT Google Presentation	Blog post about templates