Sharing Google Forms with Colleagues

Video Guide to Sharing a Google Form

Visual Guide to Sharing a Google Form 

The new Google Docs Add-ons featuring the Text Help Study Skills Highlighting Tool

Last week Google Docs and Spreadsheets received an update called Add-ons. This new Add-ons tab connects documents with third party tools that add new features or functionality to the document. The Add-ons Store looks and feels very similar to the Chrome Web Store.

One of the new Add-ons that I feel could have great benefit in the classroom is the Text Help Study Skills highlighter. This is a premium feature in the Text Help Read and Write for Google extension so the fact that it is being released for free in the Add-ons store is notable. 

The new Add-ons tab is easy to use. You'll find it located on the Google Docs or Spreadsheet toolbar. Click on Get Add-ons to browse the Add-ons store. 

The Study Skills highlighter could be very helpful for teachers who like to mark-up student work by denoting specified colors for certain errors. The Study Skills highlighter makes this much more convenient than in the past using the built-in highlighting. The clear highlights option makes removing these mark-ups much simpler as well.

But one of the more exciting features of the Study Skills highlighter is the ability to extract highlights into a new document. This feature could be used to structure close and critical reading activities where students identify vocabulary, main ideas, and supporting evidence from a text, and then using the extract highlights tool as notes and/or as a form of assessment. I demonstrate this scenario in the video below.

In the video I also feature the http://newsela.com (a website for leveled expository text and news) and the Clearly extension.

I'm looking forward to exploring the potential of the new Add-ons for Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Have you found a good Add-on? Please consider sharing by replying in the comments section.

Digital Citizenship Week

You may or may not have been aware of the fact that October 21-25th is Digital Citizenship week. Helping our students become good digital citizens is a responsibility that we all share. Displaying posters, having classroom discussions, and practicing netiquette in online educational environments is a great way to model the behaviors and attitudes we want to see reflected by our students.

One of my favorite resources for Digital Citizenship is http://www.commonsensemedia.org/ They have a great K-12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum, resources for families and parents, and even some games for teaching concepts of Digital Citizenship to students. 

Not sure where to start? I recommend reading this blog post from Common Sense Media about Digital Citizenship week and the many resources available to educators looking to integrate Digital Citizenship instruction into their classrooms.

Edmodo and Common Sense Media have also partnered up to offer several Digital Citizenship resources including a Webinar on Oct. 23rd and an Edmodo Community dedicated to supporting Digital Citizenship in classrooms.