Bring IT Together 2 (ECOO & OASBO-IT) - Day 1

What an amazing day of learning at Bring IT Together 2.  This is the first year I have been able to attend the famed ECOO conference and, 1 day in, I am so glad I am here.

The day started with a keynote address from Artemis Papert and Brian Silverman.  Memories surfaced of a long-ago computer course held at St. Clair College in Windsor where my parents, brother, and I learned to move the turtle around this wonderful new device called a computer.  Brian Silverman demonstrated the newest version of Logo - that turtle from my childhood.  Thinking back to that computer course, I am amazed anew at how far technology has come in such a short time.

My morning was spent attending workshops put on by D.J. Cunningham and LEARNstyle.

A few interesting facts & reminders from D.J.'s keynote:

• Globalization is fueled by the Internet.  8 of the 10 most visited websites are housed in North America and 81% of their traffic comes from within North America.
• Our students' community is no longer their classroom, school, or town - it is the globe.
• ¼ of all Tweets are education related!
• 98% of college students own a digital device and 38% of them say they can't go more than 10 minutes without using it.

The Google Classroom workshop was a good introduction for anyone new to Classroom.

I got the most out of Lise Galuga's presentation (en français) on Google Chrome, learning a few new tricks and discovering some new apps & extensions that I am excited to try out.

The afternoon was spent discovering the power of Antidote 8 with Lise Galuga.  After a great explanation of the program and all it has to offer, Lise presented ways to incorporate Antidote into the French classroom using the SAMR model.  Antidote is an OSAPAC licensed software that, to reduce it to its simplest terms, is a French dictionary and correction program - although that description in no way does this program justice.  Dictionary, Synonyms, Antonyms, Proverbs, Conjugator, multi-word search, spell check, grammar check, visual verb tense summary, language register - this program has it all!  (If only it were cloud based . . . )  Lise's presentation is available here.

My notes from Day 1 are here.

The conference is being held in Niagara Falls so after a long, brain-tiring day, the chance to walk around outside, enjoying the fresh air and the beautiful scenery, was much appreciated!

Looking forward to more learning tomorrow.

Improving Feedback and Student Self-Analysis

With thanks to Colleen Lee-Hayes and her blog, I discovered the Google Docs Add-On "TextHelp Study Skills" and thought it could be useful in a lot of subject areas.

TextHelp Study Skills

Use this add-on to Google Docs to highlight key information that can then be grouped, sorted, and exported into a new Google Doc for later use. 

Ideas for Student Use in the Classroom:

• In Language classes, students could use the different colour to identify required language components in assignments.

• In Geography, History, Civics, Social Science classes, students could use a colour to identify the facts that they've included in their assignment.

• In English, students could identify quotations used in their essays.  (Use a different colour for each book if doing a comparative essay or, one colour for quotations from the novel and another colour for quotations from secondary sources.)

• Students could use the "Collect Highlights" feature to collate the highlighted information into an overview document that they could then share with their teacher.  

• For study purposes, students could highlight their notes and then export their highlights to create a page of key facts / ideas / etc to study.

Ideas for Teacher Use in the Classroom

• Teachers could also use the tool to provide visual feedback --> highlight the error and provide students with a legend identifying what each colour means.  Students can quickly see where, what type, and how many errors they are making.

• If teachers are the ones using the tool, we could use the "Collect" option and then go over some sample errors with the class quickly and easily.

Setting It Up:

• Link to the add-on:  https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/texthelp-study-skills/fjgimeiehjeaammngbkmpmjikfpknmpf?hl=en

• The first time, students add this "add-on" to Google Docs by opening a Google Doc, clicking on "Add-Ons" (in the File / Edit / View / etc menu of the Document) and then "Get Add-Ons" and then searching for "TextHelp Study Skills."

• Alternatively, you could provide the above link to students to authorize.

• Once they've added the program, for future documents, they simply need to click on "Add-Ons" and then click on TextHelp Study Skills --> Show Highlighting Tools.

I'd love to hear your ideas of how you see this tool being used effectively in your classroom!