Google(ie) Eyes and Exploding Heads

Dumbledore: "I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form."
Harry: "You mean... that stuff's your thoughts?"
Dumbledore: "Certainly."
         — Albus Dumbledore to Harry Potter

I was fortunate to spend a weekend last month at a Google Apps for Education Summit - or was it a "month last weekend?"   I learned so much, certainly a month's-worth of learning!  It brought back a recent funny moment with a student.  

One morning as we were walking down the hall to class, a student asked me if we were going to learn as much that day as we had the day before.  When I looked at him quizzically, he looked up at me and said it was okay because he was ready, but he just needed to know what was coming.  He explained that when he got home the day before, he thought his head was going to explode!

{I'll admit to going over the previous day's activities in my own head as I tried to recall what could have caused such a feeling...}

While exploding heads really isn't the result I am going for at the end of a day in 3rd grade, I do love that this student was able to put into words that feeling of having so much learning whirling around inside one's head, all of it trying to find a place to settle in - and all while more information is still coming in!   On one hand, you don't want to stop listening for fear of missing something useful and important, and on the other hand you want to process what you are hearing and seeing because your brain is shooting off all of these creative sparks of ideas for how to use what you're learning!   Well, after my two days at the Indiana GAFE Summit, I knew exactly how my student felt!   What I needed was a Pensieve!

There were so many great tools, strategies, and activities for using technology in the classroom that I left wondering how to ever sift through it all so I could implement parts and pieces.  Even more daunting - I wondered how to share this wealth of information with my colleagues without making their heads explode, especially since we are just beginning our journey into GAFE and I am quite leery of adding to the workload of my teammates.

Focusing on tools to help teachers save time and effort, I have decided to share those ideas that I found the most useful, and then only a little at a time.   Here are a few tools and ideas I am already using thanks to the wealth of information shared at the GAFE Summit in Evansville:

• Have you ever been ready to share a YouTube video with your class - only to be surprised by a not-so-appropriate ad or questionable comment?  Use YouTube Options, NicerTube, or Turn Off the Lights to get rid of all the surrounding ads, comments, or suggested videos to view.

• Are you looking for a simple way to assess student learning at the end of a lesson using an exit ticket?  Or perhaps you want to build your own quizzes or surveys - Google Forms can help!   I've only scratched the surface, but most recently our Teacher-Librarian used this to get students involved in our own March Madness Battle of the Books.  We're also going to use this tool to build a self-assessment rubric for upcoming history presentations.

• What teacher doesn't need a timer occasionally?  Google Timer is seriously cool: just type in "google timer ___ minutes" in the address bar and like a magic genie, there it is!

• Do you need students to do a web search, but want to limit them to specific sites while searching?  Google Custom Search is the tool you need!  This handy tool,  as the name implies, allows you to preselect the websites from which your students will be able to search.

• Like to use QR codes with students to quickly get to a site?  I love to use  ShortenMe, which creates a shortened web address AND a QR code, making access to a particular site or document a total breeze for students!

• One final tool (for now) that I already use frequently is the "Bookmark All Tabs" option.  Why or how might you use this?  For me, pulling together a group of short videos for a chapter in history used to mean sifting through my bookmarks and getting them all loaded and ready to view.  By bookmarking all the tabs under "Chapter 6, US History" - they are already grouped for me...much like storing them in a Pensieve!

While I attended the GAFE Summit for only two days, the sessions and knowledgeable presenters provided me with enough ideas and tools to explore and play with for the next several months!  

If you have a favorite Google tool, or an engaging use for one of the few I have shared, please be sure to leave a comment so we can once again fill our heads to the point of exploding!

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