Everywhere outside of the education industry (which seems to focus on Google Forms), JotForm is the gold standard for creation of forms whether on PCs, Macs, or mobile devices. It can be used to sign up volunteers, get feedback on events, enroll people into classes, ask for donations, or collect payments. A JotForm can even show different questions based on what a user answered in prior questions. Its drag-and-drop interface makes building it intuitive, quick, and easy. With a wide variety of themed templates, it’s easily adaptable to any need. Once the form is completed, it can be shared via a link or social media, or integrated into DropBox, Google Docs, and many other popular platforms.

Check this link. to see if you qualify for an education account that awards you a 50% discount on pricing.

How to use it

Set up an account and then decide if you want to start with a blank page or a template. Follow the simple drag-drop directions to build your form using predesigned name/email fields, text answers, multiple choice selections, drop-down lists, an image, an upload field (where students can send their work to you), or an input table. Format the form to meet your school theme or other design criteria using predesigned themes or one you upload from your computer. Collaborate with colleagues if desired. Share the completed form via a link or embed. Responses can be collected in a spreadsheet, the form itself, or other third-party integrations.

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As schools look ahead to serving not just student needs, but the greater needs of their community and world, service learning becomes an increasingly important part of high school education. The positive relationship between personal success and giving has been proven over and over, but it is not intuitive. When students become involved in ventures that give of their time and knowledge, they understand how important helping others is, not in an academic way but in a hands-on practical sense.

A popular service learning endeavor is teaching technology skills to those who don’t have them. In any number of homes and schools across the nation, students are more comfortable with using digital devices than many adults. Sharing their skill is natural and an easy way for them to give back to the community.

In this lesson plan, students will teach a group of seniors how to use common technology to help them manage their life and relationships better.

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In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: #69–Instead of Emailing, Share

Category: Email

Sub-category: Internet, MS Office, Google Apps, Parents

Q: I want to share a class video with parents, but the file’s too large and I don’t know how to embed it into the class blog. What can I do?

A: Share it with Google Drive or Microsoft’s OneDrive. In fact, you can share from any cloud-based file folder including Dropbox and Box.

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Type Dojo is a new free comprehensive approach to learning keyboarding. The ad- and distraction-free interface provides not only practice drills but quick links to grade-appropriate keyboarding games (including the popular ones from DanceMat Typing). It’s easy to get started and just as easy to use making it the perfect tool for busy teachers and students who have lots to do besides keyboarding.

But in the crowded field of online keyboarding, Type Dojo will become your favorite for one other simple reason: It multitasks. It has tons of wordlists for many subjects so students learn while practicing keyboarding. For example, if you’re working on geography, students can keyboard with the Geography word list or Marzano Science. If you’re studying literacy, use wordlists for Dolch/Fry/Sight words, Compound Words, or Phrases. Activities present as a timed test (between one and five minutes) that are selected by grade and topic. When completed, students get a certificate that can be printed or simply saved in their personal file.

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In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: #61–Email from MS Office

Category: Email

Sub-category: MS Office, Classroom management, Printing

Q: I was helping a colleague who couldn’t print a document (server problems) and wanted to email it to herself to print at home. She started going online to her web-based email account and I stopped her. There was a quicker method.

A: Click the email tool on the MS Office program toolbar. It automatically opens your email program. An email dialogue box will open. Fill it in and send.

Of course, if you’re in Google Apps, it’s already in the cloud which means you can access it from anywhere—like home

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10Greatest.com has a comprehensive list of the top education blogs. It covers everything from grade-level resources to topic-specific. I’m proud to say that Ask a Tech Teacher is the first blog on the list–but we have a lot of august company, everything from Richard Byrne to Alice Keeler.

Here are a few:

ASK A TEACHER

LEARN LEAD GROW

COOL CAT

PBS PARENTS

LARRY FERLAZZO’S ENGAGING PARENTS IN SCHOOL

ED TECH FOR BEGINNERS

CAITLIN TUCKER

TEACHER TECH WITH ALICE KEELER

SCHOLASTIC

FREETECH4TEACHERS

PARENT CUE

THE EDUCATOR

If you’re wondering who to follow to be sure you are up to date on the latest in education, definitely check this list.

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Many of my most popular articles are about mouse skills. Every year, tens of thousands of teachers visit Ask a Tech Teacher to find resources for teaching students how to use a mouse. No surprise because using a mouse correctly is one of the most important pre-keyboarding skills. Holding it is not intuitive and if learned wrong, becomes a habit that’s difficult to break.

The earlier posts are still active, but I’ve updated this resource with more websites and posters to assist in starting off your newest computer aficionados.

Mouse Skills

1. Bees and Honey
2. Drawing Melody–draw in many colors with the mouse and create music
3. Hover skills–drag mouse over the happy face and see it move
4. Left-click practice while playing the piano
5. MiniMouse
6. Mouse and tech basics–video
7. Mouse practice—drag, click
8. Mouse skills
9. Mouse Song
10. Mr. Picasso Head
11. OwlieBoo–mouse practice
12. Wack-a-gopher (no gophers hurt in this)

Puzzles

Kids love puzzles and they are a great way to teach drag-and-drop skills with the mouse buttons. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Digipuzzles–great puzzles for geography, nature, and holidays
2. Jigsaw Planet–create your own picture jigsaw
3. Jigsaw puzzles
4. Jigzone–puzzles
5. Jigsaw Puzzles–JS

Adults

1. Mousing Around
2. Skillful Senior

Posters

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One of the largest online marketplace for teachers is Teachers Pay Teachers. If you haven’t heard of this estore, you are either new to teaching or long since retired. This vibrant educator community hosts teacher-authors who wish to sell their original lessons and ideas to other teachers, district administrators, homeschoolers, and unschoolers. Since its start in 2006 by a former teacher, it’s grown to over 3.4 million teachers buying or selling over 2.7 million education-oriented Pre-K through High School lesson plans, curricula, videos, classroom activities, assessments, books, bulletin board ideas, classroom decorations, interactive notebooks, task cards, Common Core resources, and more. Teacher-authors have earned more than $330 million since TpT opened its doors with about a dozen making over $1 million dollars and nearly 300 earning more than $100,000. There’s no set-up charge, no cost to join, and no annual fee unless you choose to become what’s called a Premium seller.

TpT 2017 Conference Observations

Every year, TpT holds a conference to share ideas with teacher-authors on how to build their stores, develop their platform, and make money off of their passion. It’s more like an Amway convention than an IBM shareholder meeting. Or, if you’re a football fan, think Pete Carroll’s amazing college football success attributed in no small part to his high-energy positive way of motivating players, an approach that earned him the nickname “the poodle” from arch-rival Notre Dame.

This year, I trundled my way up to Anaheim, California, home of Disneyland and the National Hockey League’s Anaheim Ducks, ready to be wowed by the expertise of fellow teachers and eager to make a whole lot of new connections. I wasn’t disappointed. From start to finish, this event was a rowdy affair filled with energy and enthusiasm, networking and new friends. The first day, as we rode up the elevator to the Welcome event, the TPT folks cheered and high fived all of us teacher-authors. Buzzwords like “shout out”, “ecosystem”, “safe space”, “self-publishing”, “data analysis” were part of every conversation. A favorite phrase was “That’s OK”. Rarely was Common Core mentioned and never did politics come up (thank goodness!).  Teachers raved about their “unicorn husbands”, unbelievable spouses who did the housework, childcare, and cooking so their entrepreneurial wives (90% of the teachers I saw in attendance were female) could work on their TpT store.

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In today’s K-12 education ecosystem, most classroom management tools have moved online. This includes typical LMS (Learning Management Systems) functions like homework, classwork, schedules, quizzes, resources, and gradebooks so stakeholders–teachers and students–can access them from any location and any digital device. Because LMSs have a reputation for being complicated to understand and daunting to set up, lite versions that give up some of the robustness in favor of a more pleasant user experience have become popular. The first ‘lite’ option that most educators think of is Google Classroom. It’s easy to use, accessible from all devices, collaborative, and integrates with lots of education apps. You will find yourself most comfortable in the Google Classroom environment if the tools you use are aligned with Google Drive, your browser of choice is Chrome, and your digital device is a  Chromebook.

It turns out there are lots of other reasons schools and teachers don’t want to use Google Classroom:

• It lacks many features that teachers want in classroom management such as syncing with popular non-Google apps and tools.
• If you have an LMS you love, Google Classroom often won’t work well with it because it isn’t well-aligned with industry standards.
• It’s only free if you have a G Suite for Education account.
• It’s not well-suited if you use Microsoft Office programs.
• It doesn’t allow a lot of customization. That makes it simpler to use but less adaptable to unique needs.
• It’s too “googlish”. Toolbars and symbols are easy to understand if you’re into Google, not so much if you aren’t.

The biggest for many people: Privacy concerns continue, despite Google’s efforts to put them to bed. If you’re looking for a non-Google Classroom alternative, here are four:

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft is late to the classroom management party but its Microsoft Teams is a worthy consideration. Its name doesn’t scream education though it is the sequel to the since-retired Microsoft Classroom preview. Once set up, the platform works hand-in-hand with OneNote Class Notebooks to provide a digital workspace where teachers can create collaborative classrooms, connect in professional learning communities, communicate with school staff, plan lessons, assign and grade homework, comment on work, and differentiate for student needs. Students can find and share assignments, receive feedback, and collaborate digitally. Overall, it offers similar features to Google Classroom in a different environment.

Free to schools who have Office 365 for Education, it is considered more user-friendly than Google Classroom by some while others disagree. What no one argues is that it works better with Office documents. If your school uses Word, PowerPoint, or Excel on iPads or PCs, this might be a better choice.

Kiddom

Kiddom is a free standards-based classroom management platform designed to help teachers curate individual learning experiences. Its pages are visual and easy-to-understand, intuitive to set up, and agile in their responsiveness to varied student and class needs. With its rich analytic features, teachers can quickly determine how students are doing and where remediation is needed. Because many of the statistics are linked to foundational detail, teachers can quickly dig deeper without having to click around trying to find where that particular data lives.

If you are a Google school, you’ll like that Kiddom integrates with Google Drive. Teachers can share docs, sheets, and forms directly with students without leaving Kiddom’s ecosystem. In fact, with Kiddom, you get everything you love about Google Classroom as well as the features only Kiddom brings to learning such as:

• the ability to plan, assess, and analyze via a free library of standards-aligned resources
• quick lesson planning using an integrated curriculum planner that can personalize instruction
• unlimited possibilities for student ownership as they submit work, track their own progress, and solicit feedback from teachers
• standards-based lesson plans which allow teachers to track completion of skills
• easy-to-read, actionable reports that help teachers understand individual student performance
• a flexible curriculum planner that allows teachers to modify individual student learning pathways

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