Kami

Recently, a student of mine  introduced me to Kami (shout out to Adam Brillhart).  Kami is a thing that is kind of difficult to describe, but pretty easy to use.  In its essence, Kami is a Chrome Extension that creates an overlay so that users can fill in blanks or collaboratively modify an article, text, worksheet, or whatever.  Personally, I feel that Kami works best with PDF files.  If you are unfamiliar, PDF's are super-secure which is great because the receiver cannot edit your document.  On the other hand, PDF's can be a pain in the tuckus because the receiver cannot edit the document.  Kami solves this problem. So far, I haven't found anything that Kami won't work with.  

Rather than drone on and on with ultra-detailed instructions, how about we watch a video tutorial?

White Boards

I like white-boards.  All kinds.  Really.  When we think of technological advances the glorious white-board is oft-forgotten.  Who misses the days of chalk dust on your pants, hands, and face?  I don't; chalk dust was the worst.  I also don't miss touching chalk.  Maybe I am the only one, but the tactile feel of chalk really bothers me -- not to mention the noise of chalk on a chalkboard.  Not just the fingernail screeching sound, but the average humdrum chalk sound.  It really bothers me.

Sure dry-erase markers can get a little squealy at times and, yes, white-boards can be a pain to clean, especially if they are not cleaned right away, and, yes, the "special sauce" that companies sell to clean whiteboards smells like poison (it probably is poison), but I will take them every day of the week.  In all of their forms.

Speaking of forms let's talk about that.  We bought these super-sweet white-boards from Steelcase.  I really like the white-boards and have been hoarding them.  Maybe "hoarding" is the wrong word.  Long story short, some of my peers do not use the white-boards as much as I do so I "borrow" some and then never give them back.  Maybe "stealing" is the right word. Please don't tell.   Anywho, check out how cool these are. ----> 

These are great for think-pair-shares, close readings, brainstorming session, whatever you can think of.  If your school doesn't have the funds to purchase a class set there are alternatives.  My favorite alternative is butcher paper.  Butcher paper is not dry-erase, but you can get a bunch of it super-cheap.  Tape a chunk to a table, throw down some markers, and get to work. Below, you will see the epic "Carrot Top versus Little Debbie" cartoon one of my students made during the Create Your Own Superhero unit.

I bought a roll of butcher paper off of Amazon.com and it wasn't too terribly pricey.  Do you want to know a dirty little secret?  Your art teachers have massive rolls of this stuff in their rooms.  Go steal some!  I mean borrow, and definitely ask before you borrow --  I always do.

Don't have access to dry-erase boards and your art teacher won't give up the goods?  Just get some regular old paper.  Check out these close reading activities we did on some plain 8.5 X 11 (below).

P.S. guess which book the last three pictures come from and I will give you a piece of candy. (seriously, I have candy...like the good stuff). 

P.P.S. If you do not teach for NCCS please do not try to break into the building to get free candy.  It is not worth going to jail for free candy (not even if it is the good stuff).

Google Drive Re-Wired

I have struggled with file organization lately. By lately I mean forever. In the olden days (9-ish years ago), I struggled with paper storage. Sure I had filing cabinets and book shelves, but it never seemed to be enough. Then I got my first USB flash drive: tests, quizzes, worksheets and files all in my pocket, what more could anyone want? Oh, what a time to be alive! But, I am data hungry. It wasn't too long before I needed more, an 8 MB flash drive (remember those) became a 16 MB, became a 32MB, became a 256 MB, and so on until now; whereas, I have a 16 GB flash drive that meets my needs. That is all well and good and I ditched my filing cabinets.

My flash drives lasted until the drive (no pun intended) to go paperless. I love the idea of a paperless classroom because I hate the clutter, but the real question that no one could answer is/was where do I store student work? We had a public folder (L Drive) system that worked great for Word documents, but not so much with Google Docs. Of course, I could just have students share their Docs with me and I did. What I ended up with was a clogged inbox and a clunky Gmail folder set-up that was a hassle to manage.

During a recent dotstorming session,  a colleague of mine, Andrew Arnold, shared a pretty nifty file organization system for Google Drive.  Although not a sexy tool or tip I started experimenting with this file organization format and my students and I have come to like it.  

Before this system, I organized students shared work in my inbox.  This worked fine for years, but let's be honest, no one wants more emails.  I did have a system in place whereas I would move student work from my inbox to a student work folder, but a couple of problems arose:  1.  sometimes I would place emails in the student work folder that belonged elsewhere, 2. work was jumbled in a bulk folder with no regard to student or period, and 3. sometimes I did not receive work because students shared it with the wrong person or forgot to share their work.

With the new system, I do not get hundreds of emails on due dates and student work is broken down by period or mod. When I am ready to grade assignments all I do is go into my Google Drive open up the correct period and student folder and voila it is all there.

Of course, nothing is perfect. We are in week two of the transition from sharing to "foldering" (I made that word up) and some students still misplace or share work that should be "foldered" (I made this one up too). Everything is a process and students need to be trained on the new process, but I am confident that once they have a little experience with our new method that grading will run a little smoother.

If you are interested in using this method for your own Google Drive Please visit the instructions HERE.