To Learn Twice

As we gather more data using Google Forms and Spreadsheets there are a lot of questions out there about how we can reformat and share this data in a more consumable understandable way. In the last couple of months the Maine 207 technology team of Mark Ordonez and Janice Cacciatore and Hank Thiele have tackled this issue on several projects and as a result have created a reproducible Google Script that takes the information off a spreadsheet and ultimately creates a unique document that can be shared with anyone. Our initial purpose of attempting this was not that exciting of a project, however it proved a concept that we believe will make gathering and sharing data in Google Docs a more powerful, dynamic, and interactive process. What we initially set out to do was take a spreadsheet with information about school payments and create letters that would be mailed out to individual families. This has developed into this repeatable process: To make this easier to replicate we...

This is a question that comes up quite often when looking at Google Apps for Education: How do I block students from adding gadgets in Sites in Google Apps? The FAQ and Google Code Resources that answer this question makes it seem pretty simple, and it is, once you know the step by step instructions. First of all there are 2 main options of blocking gadgets in sites or on iGoogle pages: Blacklist Gadgets One at a Time:  I would only use this option for a domain that is for staff or adults only where I have a particular person complaining about a specific gadget Blacklist everything and then Whitelist Gagets One at a Time:  I would use this option if you want to protect students from any possible inappropriate gadget Either Option Starts out by creating a simple interface in a Google Site for Whitelisting and Blacklisting. Step 1 : Sign into Google Sites with an account that is an Administrator of Google Apps for Education and create a new site.  Step 2 :...

Most of us know the power that immediate feedback offers students. If in doubt, check out McREL's materials on Classroom Instruction that Works . However, offering this is often difficult to do in our classrooms. We have turned to "clickers" and quick forms to provide feedback, but in the last 24 hours I have found another tool for our Feedback toolbox: Self Grading/Scoring/Reporting Quiz Using Google Forms and Spreadsheets Through Matthew Peskay in  the Google Certified Trainer's group I came across an example of a Self Grading/Scoring/Reporting Quiz. Where he posted: To see an example of the solution we're using now you can watch this YouTube  tutorial we made for our staff.  To make things as easy as possible we  actually published a form template with the script already installed so the  staff member just needs to add the trigger (shown in the video).  Near the  end of the video are some examples of the e-mails the student receives wit...

A couple of weeks ago I took a look at our district's twitter feed and it said that "school would be closed today". That was a post put up 2 weeks before because of a snow day. Our facebook page had the same news. If I was still in school I would have totally shown that to my parents to stay home. It got me thinking about what would be the best information to post to our social network sites in a timely fashion. I ended up with events because we have stuff going on across the district all the time, which could provide a steady stream of status updates and tweets. The problem is: "how do you get this stuff posted without handing out login credentials to everyone?" So this is what I came up with to solve the problem: Google Form To Google Spreadsheet To Google Calendar Via Google Script To Gmail Via Google Calendar Reminders To Facebook Via Gmail Filters and Forwarding To Twitter Via Facebook It actually works and now we just have to provide access to a Google fo...

This is the second in a series of posts about roadblocks organizations face in deploying Google Apps for Education (GAFE) . In the last post I went into depth about the FUD that circulates around Google Apps Deployments. In this post I will discuss CRUD, which are the reasonable Concerns, Reservations, Unknowns, and Decisions (along with some of the “ ilities ”) that emerge when choosing to use Google Apps for Education. As the person that feels the heat for anything that goes wrong with educational technology in our district, from PEBKAC errors to full network meltdowns, there is CRUD that goes along with any hardware, software, or cloud based deployment. A big part of my job is to be paranoid and critical about technology until I can be reasonably assured that it will work reliably, to the point of invisibility, to my schools. Although few products are actually invisible, to the level of a classroom chalkboard, my goal is that they all end up there. With that in mind I am alway...

This is the first in a series of longer posts that will discuss some of the common roadblocks I hear about, and help other schools work through, when trying to deploy Google Apps for Education in their schools Fear, uncertainty and doubt ( From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) is a tactic of rhetoric and fallacy used in sales , marketing , public relations , [1] [2] politics , propaganda and trolling . FUD is generally a strategic attempt to influence public perception by disseminating negative and dubious/false information designed to undermine the credibility of their beliefs. An individual firm, for example, might use FUD to invite unfavorable opinions and speculation about a competitor's product; to increase the general estimation of switching costs among current customers; or to maintain leverage over a current business partner who could potentially become a rival. This document is in regards to an an email I received from a coll...