Soundtrap accounts

Good news-- we now have a set of Soundtrap Edu accounts for use at CVU.  As a reminder, Soundtrap is cloud-based tool for recording audio, such as music and podcasts. It allows for multitrack recording and comes with a set of prerecorded loops and sound effects.

As we do with WeVideo, we have to share these, so once students are finished working on a particular project, the accounts become available to others at CVU.

What you get with the edu account:

• Access to the full library of loops and sound effects.
• Unlimited projects
• Collaboration
• Classroom management

If you're interested in using Soundtrap with your students, please let me know.

Slides from Vermont Fest

I was at the Vermont Fest ed tech conference last week.  Here are some themes that I took away from it:

• A big emphasis on creativity, both high- and low-tech.
• Personalization
• A need to rethink how we do professional development in schools
• A real movement towards getting more computer science and coding in the curriculum.  Speaking of which...I hope you saw my last post about Hour of Code.

I also wanted to share the slides from my own presentation about using screencasting.  Thank you to Amy Wardwell, Olaf Verdonk, and Nicole Gorman for their contributions. Note that some of the examples may not play because they are not publically shared.

Oh, and here's a nice site I learned about (from watching a keynote speaker use it)-- https://www.flaticon.com/.  Lots of free icons to use in your presentations (attribution required if you have a free account).  I'm a big fan of icons over realistic photos when you want to present a general image over a specific one.

For example, consider this image of a student (from Pixabay.com)

versus this one

Icon made by Smashicons from www.flaticon.com

They're both compelling, but the icon perhaps better represents "all thinkers."

Hour of Code

The Hour of Code is coming!  

This year, it takes place during the week of Dec 9-15.  As a reminder, the idea is for all students (and adults, too!) to try their hand at coding for one hour sometime within that week.

Code.org provides lots of ready-to-go self-guided activities here (tip-- filter for grades 9+ and choose "Comfortable."  Switch to "Beginner" for more basic activities).

This is not just for math and technology teachers! There are activities appropriate for all kinds of situations.  Here are some examples.

Sustainability

(part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals project).

Life on Land (Python)

Tynker

Grades 6+ | Python

Part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals project, this Python project will have you create your own tree-planting game.

Responsible Consumption and Production (JavaScript)

Tynker

Grades 6+ | JavaScript, HTML, CSS

Part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals project, this coding prompt shows off a short project exploring recycling and reuse. Readers can create their own game by expanding the project.

Art

Interactive Art: Bringing Art to Life with Code

Peblio

Grades 9+ | JavaScript

Learn to draw and animate shapes with code to create interactive artwork inspired by artists.

Science

Escape Velocity and Black Holes!

STEMcoding project

Grades 9+ | JavaScript

Did you see the images of the black hole that were released in Spring 2019? Do you want to know more about black holes and how to escape from them? Check out this coding activity on how fast you need to go to escape from a gravitational field and what happens when not even light can escape!

Language Arts

ReconFigure of Speech

Code Avengers

Grades 6+ | Python

Our story-telling app retells a fairytale, with weird and funny results! But the program is poorly written. Writing good code is vital. Help refine this app into something amazing. Look at word classes in English, and use variables, consonants, lists, and functions to reconfigure this program. If you have written a program before and want some style, this is for you.

Return of the NPR Student Podcast challenge

As they did last year, NPR is hosting a student podcast challenge.  I know a lot of students are doing podcasts already (but this contest doesn't assume any previous experience).  It's a great opportunity to get student voices heard!

There's even a nice curriculum guide for teachers, complete with lesson plans and a guide for students.

Playing Audio in Google Sites

Google Sites allows you to insert all kinds of content, from images to videos to Google Drive files (docs, slides, etc.). If you want to insert an audio file, the process is a bit different.

Here's how it's done:

1. Put the audio file in Drive
2. Share appropriately and copy the link
3. In Sites, choose embed by URL
4. Paste in share link
5. Adjust the size of the audio player

Here's a video showing how it's done:

And here's an example of it in action.

Getting there with fewer clicks

Teachers,

Where do you go to take attendance? Or to get to Moodle?

You may be missing out on a much easier way.

If you:

• Go to the CVSD website.
• Click through to the CVU website
• Click the Faculty/Staff portal
• Click the icon for Attendance or Enriching Students,

THAT'S A LOT OF CLICKS!

It's important to understand that the icons on the dashboard are simply shortcuts for URLs (the addresses of the respective tools). So, clicking on, say, the Google Drive icon just brings you to https://drive.google.com.

INSTEAD, TRY THIS…

Go to the Chrome omnibox (the place where you type in website addresses).

Type "gra" or "moo"

By the time you've even started to type the third letter (or often even after the first letter), Chrome will have already found the site you're looking for (provided you're on the device you usually use or are logged into Chrome).


For example,

If I type moo, this happens (see how Chrome remembered the rest of it-- in blue?)




And if I type gra, I get this (note that "normal" attendance is through grades.cvsdvt…)




In most cases, the first few letters of the name of the app will get you where you want to go.

Here are the first few letters of each of the commonly used tools at CVU:

To get to….	Type...
Attendance (non-Connect)	gra
Enriching Student (for Connect)	enr
Moodle	moo
Google Gmail	mai
Google Drive	dri
Google calendar	cal
JumpRope	jum

Not sure of an address?  The dashboard will still be there to remind you!

You can also bookmark the sites or add them to your Chromebook desktop or "shelf."

Hope that save you a few clicks.

Digital Citizenship Week (great resources)

Next week (October 14-18) is Digital Citizenship Week.  While it's a bit of a funny week for us with testing and conferences, it's a reminder that we can all play a part in helping students become good digital citizens.  And of course, you can celebrate Digital Citizenship Week any time!

There are many excellent resources at Common Sense Education.  What's great about them is that they're well thought out, produced, and organized; all you have to do it follow the provided lesson plan.

If you've used Common Sense curriculum resources before, you should now that they've recently been updated.

Take a look at the lessons here:
https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship/curriculum?grades=9,10,11,12

And here are short videos (with accompanying questions for discussion) that you can play and discuss in a 15-minute window.
https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/5-videos-that-get-teens-thinking-critically-about-media

I'm happy to help you integrate these materials.  Please just let me know.
And also please let me know what you're doing in your classes around digital citizenship so we can share it out.

Thanks for reading.

Printing comments in a Google Doc

I just helped a student who needed to print the comments along with a Google doc. At this point, that functionality doesn't exist (although I wouldn't be surprised if it came along soon, as Google keeps adding more features).

In the past, I've recommended downloading as a Word file-- then opening and printing in Word, which allows for printing the comments.

I just discovered another way to do it, however.  If you click File...Download...Web Page, you will get a file (with the extension html) that opens as a web page with endnotes for all of your comments.

Doing this...

...turns these comments....

...into endnotes.