Teacher Tools for Time Saving

This week I bring you several tools that will help you save time.  Everyone knows where I stand on the amazing time saving that Google Classroom and Drive have on instruction in the classroom and here are some other tools that I am beginning to use that help with limiting the amount of time it takes to effectively lesson plan, teach, collaborate, and share with students and parents.

Tools I have used a lot:

Smore has the capability to share and edit a flyer to make a weekly newsletter become a document you can update and parents and students can see the updated information instantaneously.  It really helps teachers easily share information and you can easily upload pictures, videos, or text.  It is really easy to use and works well on mobile devices.

Quizlet allows you to make and share study guides with students.  There are mobile apps, but Quizlet also works well on phone and tablet web browsers.  Students can also create log ins and make study guides or note cards for other students to use.

Screencastify allows you to create YouTube screencast videos on the fly with a Google Chrome extension.  Make a 5 minute video with directions in just 6 minutes.  Their interface allows your work to get done quickly.  Use to introduce an assignment that students can refer to later.  I have also heard of teachers using these for sub plans, but I have not tried that yet.

Tools I am looking forward to using more in the next weeks:

WhenSend is a tool you can use to send an e-mail in the future.  I have used this tool once, to remind me of something later when our e-mail was not working at school and it was easy to use.

VolunteerSpot is a website like SignUp Genius, but the interface seems easier for the students or parents to use than SignUp Genius.  I will definitely try this program for our next sign up.

Remind is a program I have heard about from many other teachers.  Teachers that have clubs really use this to get information out in the format that students and parents really appreciate, text messaging.  

ShareMyLesson is a website which teachers share resources.  Of the three things I have looked for already on this site, I plan on using each of them.  I really like this site over doing a Google search, because lots of great resources show up on Teachers Pay Teachers for a price.

Google Apps & Add-ons

 This week I was exploring some Templates and Add-ons in Google Drive Files.  There are some really great time saving and additional features that have been made by other Google users and shared with the world.  

The first are Add-ons.  I have used some Add-ons before, but in Google Forms, you can make lots of different customization features.  You can limit the responses, get notifications and lots of other cool things.  Here are some of the cool apps that I discovered.

• formLimiter - allows you to limit the date range, values, and number of entries
• Choice Eliminator - allows you to create sign ups and not have too many people sign up for one item or time
• Form Notifications - get notified by e-mail when someone uses your form
• Survey Monkey - export your data to Survey Monkey for their analytics

• Fudok - creates a PDF of every form submission

To get to see them, open up a Form and click on Add-ons on the toolbar.

 

The next thing that is my favorite new thing are the templates available.  These are docs, spreadsheets, forms, and presentations that Google users have updated that allow you to copy and edit them to make them yours.  These are very similar to the templates available on Microsoft Office Products, except there are many more.  You can find templates for calculators, labels, finance tracking, certificates and so much more.  To get to them, click File > New and click on templates on the bottom.

Check it out to see all the things you can do!

Learning Management Systems

This week, I used and evaluated two learning management systems, Edmodo and Schoology.  Both of these systems emulate the social media website, Facebook. As you can see below, they have a very close appearance to each other.

This allows students and teachers to adapt easily to these two programs.  Now, what do these programs have that my beloved Google Classroom doesn't?  Well, both of them have some extra bells and whistles, but Schoology has a few more options and abilities.  If you are looking to house all of your data in one place Schoology has the ability to take attendance and keep a gradebook.  Edmodo also has a gradebook, but it is not as inclusive as the one offered by Schoology.  Here are some other great features offered by these two learning management systems:

• Folders to store files, links, and assignments.
• Quizzes that can grade themselves and post to the gradebook.
• Polls to measure the opinions to other students.
• Tools to share resources with other teachers and students.
• The ability to control the sharing that students can participate in.
• Storing assignments and other resources so that you can use them at a later date.

If you think I am abandoning this blog to start a Edmodo or Schoology blog, worry not.  Google Classroom still edges them out in the ease of sharing and the ability to see assignments as student work.  Plus, I think we will see some of these features come from Google very soon.  Give these learning management systems a try and maybe you will see some added benefits, of course, to use in conjunction with Google Classroom.