Monday, October 14, 2013

Doctopus - easily share documents with students via google and give feedback

One of the pieces of technology that I have used in my classroom is Google Docs.  I love have students submit written work via Google so that I don't need to worry about keeping all of the papers and can easily give feedback.

Doctopus is a way to do this via Google Docs.  It's a script where you can send out a template document (it can even be a blank document if that's where you want your students to start).  The beauty of this is that you are the owner of the document and therefor students can't easily share their work with other students because they don't have that permission.  Other things I like about it is that you can easily send students an e-mail once you have graded their assignment.

Before you start you'll need a spreadsheet with each student's name and e-mail address.  This will later be where you can add additional comments and grades to be sent to the students.

This video below should help you understand this more, but if you have any questions please let me know and I will do my best to clarify.


Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Top 10 Post of September

As a round-up to the month I like to post the most popular posts of the past month. Here is what everyone was reading in September.
  1. Online Planbooks 
  2. Bill Nye Worksheets 
  3. 19 Pencils 
  4. ChemThink 
  5. Quizdini - online review games 
  6. Instant Screencasts 
  7. Top 10 Posts of August 
  8. Google Resources 
  9. 10 most popular posts of June 
  10. URL shorteners

I look forward to seeing what you all are interested in October!! As always if there is something that I can write about to help you out, please let me know!                             

Friday, September 20, 2013

Life in Middle School Giveaway

One of the blogs I read, Life in Middle School, is having a giveaway with a lot of prizes.  The list of prizes include:
  • $25 Amazon or TPT Gift Card (Winner's Choice)
  • My entire 35 item TPT Store
  • Prize donated by Middle School OCD
  • Prize donated by Joy in 6th Grade
  • Common Core Task Cards from Carson Dellosa Publishing
  • Winner's Choice of 2 Items from Teaching Tales Along the Yellow Brick Road's TPT Store
  • Graphics Set from I'm Lovin' Lit
  • Paragraph of the Week Kit from Teaching in Room 6
  • Number of the Day Task Cards from Laffin's Learnings
  • 12 Genre Book Reports from 2 Peas and a Dog 
  • Winner's Choice of a Math Unit from Ideas by Jivey

  • It's worth a look!

    Monday, September 16, 2013

    How to make a grading check-off sheet from an Excel file

    If your online grading or attendance program is anything like mine you can download an Excel file with a list of the students' names.  The problem is that is also includes a whole bunch of extra information that you don't need.  Here is a short video to show you how to take that Excel sheet and turn it into a nice check-off or grading recording sheet.



    Is there anything else that you are wondering how to do and would like a how to video?  Just let me know.

    Monday, September 2, 2013

    Top 10 Posts of August

    As  round-up to the month I like to post the most popular posts of the past month.  Here is what everyone was reading in August.


    1. Instant Screencasts                            
    2. Online Planbooks
    3. Top 10 Posts of July
    4. Bill Nye Worksheets
    5. 19 Pencils
    6. ChemThink
    7. Google Resources
    8. Quizdini - online review games
    9. Online Textbooks
    10. 10 most popular posts of June                  
    I look forward to seeing what you all are interested in in September!!  As always if there is something that I can write about to help you out, please let me know!

    Thursday, August 29, 2013

    StudyChamps - worksheets and interactive mini-quizzes

    If you are like me, you are always looking for a short worksheet to have for emergency situations or sub plans or for that student who always finishes early.  StudyChamps is a site that has a collection of worksheet and interactive for you to use.  (Besides science, it also has Social Studies, English and Math.)  I would say that this site is aimed mostly for elementary and middle school.  While the interactive are very simple, the nice thing is that the students don't need an account to be able to access them.  Just give the students the link (use a link shortener) and they are good to go!

    Where do you look for those "little extras"?

    Tuesday, August 27, 2013

    Text your parents and students

    Ok, I know you might be thinking "There is NO WAY I am letting my parents/students have my cell phone number!"  That's where Remind101 comes into play!  It's a website that allows you to send texts to parents and students without ever giving out your number and without having to have parents/students give your theirs.

    Right now they are running a back to school contest where you can win $500 in classroom supplies just for signing up!

    It also gives parents/students an option to receive your messages as e-mails if they don't want the text
    messages.  My plan is to use this next year to post my homework.  Remind 101 gives you a widget that shows a summary of the past text messages.  My plan to embed this widget into my webpage so that there is a record of the homework assignments that I send out.  Plus it's a way for students who don't sign up for this to have a place to see the homework if they forget to write it down during class.

    Take a look at this short video to learn more.

    What is your preferred method of communication with parents/students?