Blog 03: Let’s Do the Thing!
I recently started watching (and also finishing within 3 days) the Legend of Korra on Netflix, and one of the comedic characters always says, “Zhu Li do the thing!”, so we’re gonna be like Zhu Li and do the thing!! Also off topic, but if you still haven’t watched Avatar the Last Airbender and the Legend of Korra you most definitely should. Shout out to my older brother Colin for watching the show with me as a kid, and again letting me relive the episodes (sorry for the spam messages bro!).
One of the first things I want to talk about is the amazingness of Google. It would be cool if Google could sponsor me because man, I could say so many great things about Google (except the fonts, Google make better fonts!!!). As an educator I’ve always had access to a google drive account, even if my school district didn’t use Google as our mail system. You have so much storage, it autosaves everything, and works really well with everything. You can make Google Slides, Google Documents, Google Sheets, Google forms, EVERYTHING! So if as an educator you are still using Word to do everything, and saving and moving and saving and moving all of your files, do yourself a favor and start using Google Drive! You can even make in PowerPoint and save to your Google Drive so you can have it wherever you go if you’re like Rose from Titanic and never want to let go (yes, there will be lots of movie/tv show references from here on out, I have a problem it’s fine I’m fine).
One of the really great things that I LOVE about Google specifically is the Google Form application! They don’t show it very well in the Drive because it’s not as popular as Slides and Doc (aka the better PowerPoint and Word). When you click on “New” in the Google Drive, there is a “more” option! You can do a Form, a Draw, connect your Nearpod and many more that we will talk about in posts to come! If you click on Form, Google will open a new tab for you to create your Google Form! What’s awesome is that you can use these forms for anything! In my district they want us keeping track of who uses what iPad, at what time, and what day they used the iPad. Now I don’t know about you, but I thought, “uhhh how am I supposed to do that while also directing students to class, tell them where they sit, tell them what they should be doing, and making sure everything is sanitized?”. We don’t have 15 arms and 5 heads to do all that!
So what I did, is I created a Google Form that each student fills out when they borrow an iPad. Everytime they borrow an iPad they have to fill out the form and answer the questions we need answers to. Who is using the iPad, what’s the date, what class period, and what iPad number. Even after just one day i already fill 10x better because I will always have a record of who used what iPad and when. That way, if we need to do some contact tracing we can!
Now you might be wondering, “but Bailey, what happens when they send in their response? How do they even respond?”. Do not fear, I have the answers!
What’s great about Google, is that all of it’s programs work together. So when it comes to Google Forms, any form you create you can create a matching spreadsheet to go with (they call them Google Sheets, but it’s just Google’s version of Excel). You can create/access the matching Google Sheet through the Form so you always have student answers! And, it’s organized with a timestamp too, because ya know sometimes knowing what day it is can be difficult. All their responses are kept in the Google Sheet forever until you disable or just stop using the form. They’re also real time answers too!
Now again, you might be thinking, “this is all awesome and I want to do this but how will the students know to do the Google Form, how can they access it?”. A QR Code generator! You’ve probably used one before in a PD session or something, and maybe didn’t even realize that’s what it is! There are so many QR code creators that you can find for free on the internet, they’re literally everywhere. All you need to create the QR Code is the link from the Google Form! Which you can find if you click on the “Send” button, and then the little chain link icon! Just make sure to save the QR code, and then boom! Post the QR Code with whatever directions, and you got it! Here is what mine looks like in my classroom!
Oh! One last super cool thing about Google Forms is that it automatically assumes the kind of answer you need based on your answer. So if you type in “Date”, the answer automatically changes to a calendar format answer. You can also require certain questions be answered!!
What’s great about technology today, is that people like Steve Jobs and whoever created the Android phone (I’m an Apple girl, sorry Android users, I still send my love though) realized how popular QR codes were becoming and incorporated them into their phone designs. You used to need a QR code scanner to open a QR code but not anymore! Just open your camera and the camera will do the hard work for you! That’s also great because you don’t need to waste space on school owned technology with QR code scanning apps now.
I know this all seems super simple, and it is! But if you get confused, never fear you’re trusty teacher blogger is here to help! And next post we’ll keep working with this awesome thing called Google!
Today was my first day back face to face with students since COVID shut us down in the Spring, and this technology stuff has really become helpful. Everything we’re doing, especially in Ms. Upchurch’s class, is all virtual. I don’t hand out papers, and I’m not picking up papers. I volunteered to teach the heavy majority of KVA classes for my team, so I actually only had a grand total of 26 students in my class today. I have two classes, 13 students in each. Socially distancing is a little bit easier in such a small class size, but to my friends with bigger classes be safe and be strong!
It was kind of amazing to me to see students actually happy to be back in the classroom (I mean I get it, but still!!). Now it’s time to get them excited about content (WOO COLONIZATION AND EXPLORATION)! Even though half of them were missing most of their assignments, they still actually seemed content to be in class working instead of at home working. And honestly it was weird to be teaching to faces!! I’ve been so used to teaching to black screens on Zoom because nobody wants to turn their camera on! We’ll see how the rest of this week goes, and see how many assignments we can actually get done, ugh!
May your hand sanitizer bottle be large, and you cleaning wipes be plentiful my friend!
- Bay :-)
