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Monday, November 2, 2015

Collaborative Brainstorming with Google Docs Drawing Tools

To help students develop skills necessary for living and working in the 21st century, educators must provide them with learning experiences to allow them to master the 4C's: creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration. Opportunities for students to work together to solve real-world problems foster the development of these skills and also require students think outside of the box to generate a number of different solutions to solving a problem. Brainstorming can be a key part of this creative process. The features available in the drawing component of Google Docs are well-suited for online, collaborative brainstorming sessions for quite a few reasons.

Tools are available to create a visual mind map
Use shapes, arrows, text, word art and imported images to build a visual mind map for any task.

Sharing allows for collaboration
Groups of students can collaborate and share ideas on the same mind map from locations near and far. Digital brainstorming sessions provide all students with an opportunity to contribute, unlike traditional brainstorming sessions which encourage contributions from the "quick thinkers" in the room.

Revision history feature highlights individual contributions
Contributors are assigned their own color and the revision history highlights and tracks changes to any Google Doc. It's easy to see what each student has contributed to the big picture.

Templates are available
Some generous and innovative users have created and shared templates for everyone to use. Use them as a starting point or a model to create your own templates for students.

Example:

Customize Colors on Tags w/ ThingLink

Reposting from the ThingLink Blog

One of our most requested features has been the ability to customize the fonts and colors of rich media tags - aka the pop-ups!

We are happy to announce that these features are now available to ThingLink PRO, Whitelabel, and VIP users.

More customization options will allow you to match the look and feel of your tags with the graphic style of your images and videos. Using brand colors and font styles enhances the additional layer of information on your media.

Change tag pop-up color
Change font color and size
Four font choices: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma & Times New Roman

Here are a couple of examples of what you can do:

Here is a how the feature appears in the editor.

We hope you enjoy the new features and as always, please keep us in the loop with any cool projects you're working on!

If you are interesting in signing up to Pro, Whitelabel or Premium Education please sign up here.

Celebrating 6 Years of Learning Through Blogging

I'm back in Nashville where I first began this blog 6 years ago. I started with Wordle and I wordled everything along the way!

Many thanks to all who have stopped by this blog over the past 6 years. What a long, strange trip it's been.

Google Presentation for Student Portfolios

Compatibility with PowerPoint combined with the ability to easily publish slideshows online makes Google Presentation a Cool Tool for creating and maintaining student portfolios. I know of two innovative teachers in D97 who are building these portfolios, and they are definitely worth taking a look at. What a great way to celebrate the learning, progress and talents of your students, and what a fabulous way to share with relatives and friends across the world! I'll bet these students love having their work published and it certainly does encourage people to check your blog.

Erica Childress' Kindergarteners at Work (See Class List in the sidebar)
Sheila Vietzen's Kindergarten Class Work Blog (See Student Portfolios in the sidebar)

Sheila and Erica are two of the teachers you might be working with if you decide to attend a D97 GoogleDocs training session, coming to a location near you. Sign Up for Google Training

Please comment to share your thoughts about these kindergarten portfolios of student work. Just click the link below and type a message into the box.

Technology is a tool that can be used to help teachers facilitate learning experiences to address the diverse needs of all students. At the most basic level, digital tools can be used to help students find, understand, and use information. When combined with student-driven learning experiences that are fueled by essential questions and offer flexible learning paths, use of digital tools can break the learning barriers that exist in our classrooms.

Please join me and Simple K12 for an afternoon of webinars that will highlight digital tools and resources to help teachers design learning experiences that effectively incorporate Digital Differentiation.

Learn more about each session on my Professional Development Blog or Sign up at Simple K12.