Google Unveils 'Classroom' Learning Management System

Viewed on Education Week by Jude:

By Michele Molnar on May 7, 2014 9:45 AM 

Google is entering the world of "learning management systems" with the pre-release ofClassroom, designed to work with the Google Apps for Education suite currently used by 30 million students and educators.

The tool, which Google announced on its blog Tuesday, will give teachers a way to create and collect assignments, provide real-time feedback to individual students, make announcements, ask questions, and organize their folders by assignment or by student. 

Below is a screen shot from Google's blog, showing an example of how a home page might look using Classroom, with assignments for each period of a school day.

The free tool, which weaves together Google Docs, Drive and Gmail, is expected to launch officially in September to K-12 schools and colleges. It will be available in 40 languages.

For now, the company is inviting educators to apply for a preview, and ed-tech companies or individual developers can sign up to learn more about integrating with Classroom. 

"We've been working with more than a dozen pilot schools and universities to try out Classroom and provide feedback," wrote Zach Yeskel, product manager for Classroom and a former high school math teacher, in the blog.

Educators interested in applying for an opportunity to try out Classroom before its release can do so here.

Easy navigation between Apple devices and Chrome

Apple devices and Chrome users, our life keeps getting simpler and better.

Thanks to a couple of Chrome extensions, you may access your Apple productivity tools, docs and data on your PC. Syncing between devices is all automatic.Here they are:

- Your bookmarks
- All your iWorks documents: Pages, Numbers, Keynote... In fact, Chrome allows you to create and modify documents as if you were using your Apple device.

- All your pictures, mail (you have the option to sync with outlook, too), contacts, calendar and tasks.

- For the absent minded-ones among us, you can even use "Find my phone" on Chrome.

All you need to do is install in Chrome these two apps, iCloud Bookmarks and iCloud Dashboard.

Jude

Edmodo Snapshot

Whether you are using EDMODO or not they just released a really cool tool for  use in the classroom and for teacher evaluation.  Its called EDMODO SNAPSHOT and it is a very easy way to test student's understanding of the Common Core standards.  You can use it as a pre-test or exit ticket or quiz for lessons or for your class.  EDMODO will create the assessment for you as long as you identify the standard/s you want tested.  It gives instant real time results that shows student strength and weaknesses, thus your strengths and weaknesses since their entire academic potential rides on teacher effectiveness and not diet, home life, personality, community, mood, sleep schedule, job, mental state, and on and on.

Check it out:

https://www.edmodo.com/snapshot

Josh

Microsoft Office for iPad

Yes, it's available. No, it's not free.

You can download the apps (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote) from the App Store. They are free.

Then, when you open the app, you'll discover the string attached to it; you need a subscription to Office 365.

The subscription is ~$10/month. It automatically saves on the cloud all the documents you create, either on your iPad or your  Microsoft Office applications on your  computer. It also syncs between your devices.

iWorks, the Apple version of Office does this for free. Pages (Apple word processor, not quite as versatile as Word), Keynotes (Apple version of powerpoint), Numbers (Apple version of Excel) are all free apps (if you bought your device after Sept 1, 2013. Otherwise it is ~$10 for each app). They automatically save your documents on iCloud and sync between your devices. Your documents can be exported in Microsoft Office format and iWorks will open Office documents.  

The choice is yours.

                                                                                                                                 Jude

Preparing for the 2015 NH Young Adults Literary Award

For the first time this year, Profile English students participated into the selection of the  2015 Flume Award nominees. 
They can now choose the 2015 Flume Award winner!  All they need to do is read the books on the 2015 nominees list, then cast their vote for the book they think deserves to be the winner (voting deadline is April 30, 2015). See Jude for more details.

The 2015 Flume Award nominees are:

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
The Selection by Kiera Kass
Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys
Winger by Andrew Smith
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Brochures and Bookmarks are on the Flume webpage.

Science Teachers: Free Virtual Chemistry Lab

The ChemCollective is a collection of virtual labs, scenario-based learning activities, tutorials, and concept tests. Teachers can use our content for pre-labs, for alternatives to textbook homework, and for in-class activities for individuals or teams. Students can review and learn chemistry concepts using our virtual labs, simulations, and tutorials. The ChemCollective is organized by a group of faculty and staff at Carnegie Mellon who are interested in using, assessing, and creating engaging online activities for chemistry education.

Jude

Teachers: where Ipad and Bloom's taxonomy meet

Ipad users: this poster is worth several hours of Professional Development. I know this sounds like a bold statement, however, I believe you'll see the point after  taking a look at the original posting by Allan Carrington here.
You may download the poster here. 


Jude