The final survey has been completed by about half of the faculty so far. Screenshots of the results are included below. Of the 23 responses, five stated that they have not attended a PLT meeting, work session or used one of the tutorials created. These five people were mostly from the PreK/K group and guidance/administration group. Seven indicated that they are not currently using Google Classroom (also mostly the Pre/K group, guidance/administration group, and the interventionist), three indicated that they haven't used any of the tutorials or information provided during PLTs (a second, fourth and fifth grade teacher), and the others indicated that they had used instruction provided. Respondents indicated that they liked the step-by-step instructions, that they are visual steps, and that we are available for assistance. Several offered other areas of interest that they would like for us to continue with. We do plan to continue to offer tutorial help in the areas that our teachers are interested in for as long as they need us to.
The survey will remain open until the end of next week in hopes that more teachers will take the time to complete it and let us know areas they still need help in.
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A final survey was created and sent out to the staff to complete. The survey will close on 12/7/2017 and the results will be evaluated and posted.
A teacher contacted me in a panic. The previous day, a student had almost completed a Slide presentation for a writing assignment and suddenly it had disappeared. They attempted to use the 'undo' button, however, recovering the information was unsuccessful. I was able to walk her through how to check the revision history to restore a previous version. I could foresee this happening from time to time so a tutorial was made and shared with the faculty.
Teachers are beginning to use Google Forms more and more. After the introduction of Formenate, teachers began asking if there was an easier way to move their fill-in-the-blank assessments that were already created to Google Forms. While at EdTech, I was introduced to a Google add-on titled Doc to Form. This add-on doesn't move the entire assessment with one click like Formenate does but it does reduce the need to switch between screens when copying and pasting. I developed a tutorial for it and shared it with the staff. I set aside a Technology Thursday to help any teachers wishing to stay. Only one teacher attended but she was able to get two different quizzes copied over and points assigned for self-grading. When pulling my students for their testing on Friday, I was excited to learn that two other teachers had used the tutorial on their own to set up their vocabulary tests in Forms and that the students were able to complete them in their general education classroom along with their peers by using Read&Write for oral administration. I attended a webinar along with the curriculum coach and media specialist. This webinar was hosted in order to introduce the district's curriculum coaches, media specialists, and technology troubleshooters to ClassLink which the district is adopting for single sign-on for the Chromebooks. ClassLink will not only give us access to single sign-on but we will now have access from home to files and programs that are typically only available when on the district server. The webinar was very informative but also created quite a few questions. After the webinar, we spent time discussing these questions and compiling a list to forward on to our district level technology coaches prior to ClassLink's implementation district-wide.
One of the fifth grade teachers requested to meet after school to get help on creating a Google Form using Formenate. She also wanted help setting it up to self grade. She reported that she had watched the tutorials and felt like she knew what to do but wanted to have someone with her to help if she hit a roadblock. With only a few minor changes needing to be made to the formatting, she was able to create the Form on her own. There were no images to be added with this assessment but will be with the next science test. She plans to review the tutorial again regarding adding images and will ask for help if she is unsuccessful. It made me feel great to see that she took the initiative to ask for help but also that she had prepared ahead of time by watching the tutorials rather than just waiting for me to show her what to do personally. This teacher is one that I believe is embracing the use of the Chromebooks and will begin to move most of her assessments to Google Forms. She also indicated that she was creating the Form for the entire grade level to use.
After using Formenate to set up a Google Form, a third grade teacher contacted me requesting help. About half of her students had already completed the Form when an error was found in the answer key and she had not set the point scale. I was able to help her make the corrections before the rest of the class had completed the assessment. She was especially pleased to find that the changes applied not only to the Forms that were not started yet but also to those that were already completed.
Today I met with the third, fourth, and fifth grade teams during their monthly technology PLT along with the media specialist. I was able to share with them how to use Formenate to easily move assessments already created in Word and Google Doc into Google Forms. During this PLT, we also reminded them of how to unpin YouTube from the shelf so that it is not as tempting for students to use for entertainment. Teachers had previously been introduced to ViewPure, but now with teachers wanting to share videos for students to view within Google Classroom, we reminded them of their use. I shared a tutorial previously completed with them and added it to our shared Google 'How To' folder and shared network drive. The interest in using Google Forms is higher in these three groups than the previous two that I met with. Many of these teachers have already begun to use Forms and many appeared excited to have a simpler way to move from Word to Forms. A couple of those nearing retirement expressed that this would actually be creating more work for them. This is true for this year, but if these same assessments are going to be utilized in upcoming years, the work now will greatly lessen the load in the future. A few of them even began to discuss dividing up the load of creating the Forms and sharing them among those interested in them on the grade level. At the conclusion of these PLT meetings, I felt as though I had introduced them to a tool that they would find useful and would use on a regular basis - at least this first year using Google Classroom. As icing on the cake, later in the day I had a request from a fourth grade teacher to have an individual session with her after school in order to help her troubleshoot some issues she was having creating an assessment using Formenate. We found that part of her assessment was not formatted correctly. She was able to use the Formatting tutorial in order to make the needed changes so that the Word document transferred correctly. Today I met with the second grade and special education grade levels during their PLT meetings to go over the use of the Google add-on Formenate in order to easily transfer Word documents or Google Doc into Google Forms. The second grade team expressed that they are currently orally administering all assessments to their students, however, this will change after the end of the second nine weeks. All that time, students will begin reading their assessments on their own unless they have classroom accommodations set up by an IEP or 504 Plan. They currently plan to continue paper/pencil testing at least until the end of the second nine weeks and they will re-evaluate how their students are handling using the Chromebooks before deciding if they plan to go to computer-based assessments. The special education team indicated that they would begin to move assessments for students in grades 3-5 that need to be orally administered to Google Forms using Formenate so that students could use it along with Read&Write. They like that this will give the students additional practice completing computer-based tests before they have to take the online state assessments in the spring. I felt that both sessions went well. I understand the reluctance of the second grade team with moving to online testing with their students at this time. Many of the students are now comfortable using the Chromebooks for educational websites and are beginning to get comfortable using them for online writing projects. I'm sure as they mature, some will be able to begin using online testing as well. The tutorial that I created for use with Formenate is below.
Several teachers had expressed a desire to continue using PowerPoints and ActivInspire flipcharts for student review as they had when utilizing traditional laptops. Most of these PowerPoints contained audio which did not transfer over to Slides and the ActivInspire software must be downloaded in order to use the flipcharts so this prevented their use on the Chromebooks. I created a tutorial on using Screencast-o-matic and scheduled a Technology Thursday for those wishing to have additional help using it for the first time. While several indicated interest, only two teachers attended the session. The video tutorial was shared to the staff via our shared Google 'How To' folder and also on the shared network drive in our Technology folder. I also spent time conferring with our media specialist regarding upcoming Technology PLT meetings. It was decided that I would present the use of the Google Add-on Formenate to grades 2-5 as many of these teachers have expressed an interest in being able to use Google Forms for assessments and many of their assessments were previously created in Microsoft Word. |
S. Thornell
This blog covers the instruction I was able to take part in as part of my Field Experience in Instructional Technology and beyond. Archives
December 2017
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