The Tech Savvy Science Teacher: April 2015

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Google Classroom Updates

Have you heard the great news? Google Classroom has made some updates. Now you can have a co-teacher in Classroom. That means both of you can post updates and assignments.

http://googleforeducation.blogspot.com/2015/04/teaching-teams-new-ways-to-work.html

You can also create assignments and save them in draft mode. This is something that I have wanted (and put lots of feedback in for). Now I can create a bunch of assignments when I have time and save them as a draft. Then I can make them go live when I'm ready. I'm very excited about these changes.

These, and past updates, came to be because teachers like you submitted feedback to Google about what they wanted to see. In the bottom right corner of the website you will see a little question mark. Click on it and submit feedback and let Google know what you want. Do it everyday!! (that's what I do).

Now that drafts have been implemented, I have started to submit feedback about "forcing" a turn in. I would like a way to turn in assignments for students who just never do it themselves. At some point I am just going to grade what they have done and it needs to be turned in for me to do that.

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Sunday, April 19, 2015

Augmented Reality in the Science Classroom

This weekend I made a presentation about Augmented Reality in the science classroom. Everyone seemed to really be excited about using these apps in their classroom. I've posted my presentation below that you can benefit from it as well! Most of these apps are available for both Android and Apple.

For those of you who aren't familiar with augmented reality, it's a way to superimpose a computer generated image onto a real world experience. I know this doesn't explain it very well, so I suggest you download one of the apps and try it out. Here is a quick video demonstrating one of my favorite apps Anatomy 4D.

This post also appears on my other blog Savvy Secondary Science.

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Spotlight to search your Mac

Have you ever went to look for a file but couldn't remember what you called it or where you saved it? You are going to love the Spotlight feature. Searching the spotlight will search your computer for apps, documents, images and other files. In addition, it also gives your suggestions based on other things, such as e-mail and your dictionary.

You find the spotlight in the top right corner of your mac. It looks like a magnifying glass.

Below is a screenshot that shows what it looks like when I searched for "periodic table".