Add Images into Google Forms

There is GREAT news!!  You can now insert an image into a GOOGLE FORM!!!

Create your new form and go to "INSERT" on the toolbar and pull down to IMAGE!

Now the sky is the limit!  Add images!  Once you have choose an image from your computer you will be able to put an Image Title on it and you will also have the ability to change the image once it is brought in if you want to change it.  You can also left, center, or right align the image if you wish.

You can even add QR codes as images if you want like this one:

Another way of adding an image is by clicking the arrow next to the ADD ITEM button as pictured below:

Take a look at my example GOOGLE FORM HERE.

Imagine the possibilities with Quizzes that you create for students.  So how will you be using images in Google Forms?

Walking a path to successful blogging.

I am not an expert blogger, I'm just guy livin' the dream!

Blogging is truly an amazing thing.  I have read amazing posts from outstanding educators all over the world.  Some have shared personal strife and some have shared colleagues dreams!  Some have shared frustrations and some have shared how to do something.

I have personally become a better person and educator because of blogging.

I am not a seasoned blogger, I am not claiming to be some kind of expert,  I do not worry about whether or not my grammar is perfect or my sentence structure is like my high school English teacher drilled into me because it's not necessarily about that.  As an instructional technology trainer who works with administrators, teachers, and students, I often talk to teachers and admin about blogging as a way to create a digital presence.  It is a place for them to share the great things happening in their classrooms or schools.  More importantly, perhaps it can become a place they can reflect on a lesson, unit, or an idea.  Blogging can become a perfect place for reflection to happen.

Blogging can be, but doesn't have to be about conversations.  The post itself can become a place where others post comments to your post and a conversation begins, but this is where I think you can make it however you want to make it.  If you just reflect and not a single person posts a comment, so what! There is no exact way of how it is supposed to be done or what the end product should be.  It should be about you and for you!

In my experience I have sometimes blogged about my family within my professional blog.  I think this is ok because I feel like it may paint a better picture of me as a whole person.  Family is a very important part of who I am and sometimes sharing that piece of me as a professional is ok in my opinion.  I believe there is no one size fits all in blogging.

The reflection piece of blogging for the individual is invaluable.  Perhaps the most important thing to me is that maybe I will hit someone with a post, maybe someone will be inspired, maybe someone will be interested in trying what I write about, or maybe we will engage in a conversation that will make me a better person or educator.  That post might be about my family or it might be about an idea I want to share for your classroom.  The point is -just blog!  

Let's focus on kid's blogging now.  Wow!  I get so excited about the possibilities for kid's blogging.
Let me focus on young gentlemen for a moment if I may.  As a male, writing was not my favorite thing to do as a kid, particularly in grade school.  I would rather be playing kickball at recess or go to PE.  Writing for me was like pulling teeth.  In my 15 years in education the majority of young men that love to write is minimal compared to the young girls.

This is where the magic comes in.

As Bruno Mars sang "I got the Magic in me." Blogging can become Magic for kids when responses come from all over the world and you provide them an authentic audience to their work!
How do you do this you might ask?

The answer is you as an educator have to be using Twitter.  Yep twitter.  

If you connect yourself as an educator via twitter and use the hashtag #comments4kids the sky is the limit.  Twitter becomes the place where you as the teacher share the posts from the kids in your classroom thus opening up the door to a world wide audience for them.  This will get those reluctant writers writing, especially boys!

The posts the kids create do not have to be all about writing either.  They can be links to screencasts, Puppet Pal shows via an iPad, movies they have created, pictures of a field trip, audio clips, or anything else you can link up in a post!

Start blogging in Kindergarten!  It can be done, don't tell me it can't.  Get on twitter, get yourself connected and find out for yourself.  I am so impressed with kindergarten teachers classrooms that I follow on twitter because I see the amazing things these teachers are doing blogging with little K kids!
The power in which an authentic audience reads a post from a kid and gives him or her feedback is wonderful!  I have personally seen the effects of kids receiving comments and being so excited to write or share something on their blog because of it!

I highly recommend using kidblog.org for K-8. It gives you and the kids a safe, comfortable, customizable environment to blog.  High school and perhaps even middle school kids could use blogger, edublogs, or Wordpress.  I have seen it successfully done using all of those platforms.

Recently, a teacher I am working with and I collaborated to have the kids write about our great state of Nebraska!  They are 4th graders and we blog at www.kidblog.org/MrsGeldes2013 and they are studying Nebraska history so we decided to have them write about what they were learning, but better yet, we are using eduhangout.org to connect with two other educators and their classrooms in California and New York.  The 2nd/3rd graders in California and 5th graders in New York will be writing about their states and then we are going to have all the kids read each others posts and comment to each other.  Then after that we will take it up one more level by having a Google Plus EDU Hangout together at the same time with the three classes from one coast to the other!

It should be a great experience for them and yet another thing we can have the kids blog about thereafter.  Blogging is easy and it works on so many skills, but at the end of the day it's a place to share, learn, and perhaps make yourself better.  Whether you are in Kindergarten or my age. (Getting old)

So make it happen.  Why not?

#ipadacademy 3

Since this has been a series of posts for me you can catch up with previous posts here if you missed them:  #ipadacademy  &  #ipadacademy 2

So much growth continues to happen in our #ipadacademy.

Recently Sharae introduced a new app to the kids.  Puppet Pals 2.
Sharae plugged in to the projector to introduce and show the app and go over all of the key features before letting the kids loose.  We discussed that we would just let them "play" this time and next time we would have them create a show for a Health lesson the next day.  We feel giving them the "play" time is important and allows them to explore a brand new app without the requirement of an assignment initially.

The head you see "flying the plane" is the Principal's @DKauk

The room was silent and as Sharae showed different features of the app the kids were biting at the bit to get their hands on it.  It is truly something to witness.  The engagement level was through the roof and the desire of each student in the class to try something new was wildly evident.  The beauty is that in this #ipadacademy where every kid has an ipad at their fingertips they could then dig in and try it after Sharae introduced it.  It's so encouraging to see them so eager to learn.

This week Laura worked with the Media Specialist from her building to begin a biography project using the Keynote App and the kids were able to easily carry their ipads up to the media center.  The mobility of an ipad makes projects like this that much better.  Student's carried them to and from with no problems and were able to then easily track their work and when time allotted work on it when they had free time back in Laura's classroom.  Laura also starting using Keynote for their Science unit this time as well.

This student is writing a story in Google Drive for his Spelling list for the week.

Laura and Sharae starting dabbling in iMovie recently and the student's were so excited to create this way and show their finished work!  I can see many other projects starting to potentially be completed using this app!

There is so much about our iPad academy that is interesting to me, but recently I have been struck by the student's pride in their work using an iPad.  When a kid knows their work will potentially be shown to their peers and not just their teacher suddenly their effort and pride goes through the roof.

We held a Parent Luncheon with Sharae's class and invited parents into the classroom to discuss with them what we are doing with the iPads and had their children show them things we have been working on.  I learned a great deal from this Parent Luncheon.  We cannot assume parent's just know what an iPad is and what it can do.  Same with Google Apps for Education.  Our explanation of things was extremely eye-opening for all of the parents, even the ones who maybe think they know what an iPad is or have one themselves.  The classroom looks very different with an iPad in every kids hands and that also potentially changes how things look at home for parents when less papers are coming home because things are being created and handed in using the iPad.  So this communication with parents is going to be an important piece as we move forward.

So many other great little things are happening on a daily basis.  Recently, the students were given choice on which app they wanted to use for a Vocab assignment and suddenly every kid was interested in completing their work.  I love seeing this choice because now the kids can pick one they like best instead of being told which one to use.  This choice makes a difference to them!

We have had kids come up and ask us if it is ok to use an app within another app for an assignment!  This is also fantastic because they are starting to realize what certain apps are capable of and how it can be utilized to make their project even better!

The collaborative culture of the classroom is changing as well.  Fairly dramatically in fact.  So many of the activities we are able to create using the iPad lend themselves to collaborating, publishing, and sharing.  One thing I have noticed is how this collaboration and sharing then makes everyone else around them better because when I see something creative my classmate has done it pushes me to step up my game or ask, "how did you do that?".

Sharae started using the Comic Life App this past week and had students creating Comics based on her lessons about Onomatopoeia's and Alliterations.  In the example pictured below this was the 1st page of 5 pages for this young man!  He was so engaged in the activity because he could bring his personality and likes to the table.

In closing I am excited with the possibilities for our students in this #ipadacademy!!  I look forward to continuing to dig in with Laura and Sharae on creating an engaged, collaborative, connected, and exciting classroom to be in!

Google Plus Community Feature - Part 2

In a previous post found here:    I wrote about creating a Google Plus Community.

This post is about digging a little further into this Community feature within Google Plus.  Previously I wrote about how a Google Plus Community can be Public or Private.  If it is Public than of course anyone can join and if it is Private people would have to be invited by the owner.

Let's dig in to a couple of features that I am finding to be extremely helpful and I feel have tremendous power if utilized properly.
As an owner or moderator of the Community, under the Actions button pictured below you can do two key things that I think are important.

First, if you choose "Edit Community" you are able to add links, description, location, but most importantly in my opinion is the ability to add category to the discussion of the community as pictured below.  This can help narrow conversations going on in a community that may have many things to talk about.  For example, GAFE, iPads, Chromebooks, etc.  This will make for much easier searching for members of your community.

Furthermore, something else that I have found to be fairly fabulous is this:  personally I take lots of pictures of my kids.  So I am using my Private Catlett Family Community as a place we (my wife and I) can get to together and later on the kids once they are old enough.  Check this out though.  So I have an iPhone 4s and I now have the G+ app and I can add pictures from my phone straight into the Community very easily.  That is pretty sweet in itself, but let me go a little bit further.
Now my wife can access those photos from anywhere she is that has wifi and better yet she can download them to her machine for ordering at our local store (which she likes to do).

Below is a screenshot of my little man Charlie and a picture I uploaded from my phone to the Family Community.  I have clicked on this photo within the Community to view.

If we focus on the options button in the above picture and pictured below you can see there is a download option which is pretty awesome when sharing images with family, friends, or colleagues working on a project together.  So many times my colleagues and I need images taken by each other for a common project or newsletter that we are working on.  Now we can easily get to them.

Finally, another thing you may not have known that you can do within a Community is edit uploaded photos as pictured below.  This option is given in the view mode of the picture which is shown two images above in the upper left corner.  A new interface will open like the one pictured below.

Here is a closer look at the options given for editing photos below.  Lots of fun options right within my Google Community!

The further I dig in and use this product the more I like it.  One thing I love about Google is that I can do just about anything I need to do within one account.  Once again, I am able to add this to my growing list of things I can do within one FREE Google account.

#ipadacademy 2

We tried a new app on Equivalent Fractions put out by McGraw-Hill and the app has students find Equivalent Fractions on cards much like a game of Solitaire.  Ironically enough when Sharae introduced it to the kids, I think they thought it would be a "game" and it would be "Fun, Fast, & Easy."

Reality was that it challenged them and ironically enough the kids whined that it was hard and that they "didn't get it".  Sharae had to stop them, and go over it again in order to get the students to understand it might not be "Fun, Fast, & Easy".  It is an interesting thing with an iPad in a kid's hand.  Creating a Keynote presentation for Science to them right now is FUN.  Being CHALLENGED by the Equivalent Fractions app is interesting because some that were struggling were ready to give up.  It forced them to think.  It pushed them to have to actually do some "work" instead of perhaps in their mind just be "playing" on an iPad.

This week Sharae was using the versatile Doceri App to have kids work on fractions during her math lesson.  So as she modeled things on her white board, every kid was in Doceri creating and writing the problems on new slides.  They would erase the problem and start with a new one on the same slide.  So, in essence, the ipad was serving as a white board.  After the lesson I visited with Sharae about an idea I had.  Instead of the kids erasing them, they could be going to a new slide and then saving all of their "seat work" if you will and uploading it to a pre-determined folder within their Google Drive.  Then, thinking ahead students could use this as a study tool throughout the unit / chapter / etc.  The teacher could use this information by saying, "I want you to go back to Monday's "seat work" and take a look at it.  Those teachable moments that happen when you need to remind the students about a lesson, or pull up that thing you worked on the board with them.  Now you can!

The Vocab assignment.   This week students in Sharae's class used the Doceri app to create 5 slides for 5 vocabulary words.  Sharae told them they needed to write the word, definition, and create a picture of each word.  So many things happened within this little task.  Kids with Artistic ability had a platform.  Everyone was engaged!  One boy, who in a previous, non-ipad situation "would not have been so engaged" said Sharae, was completely engaged and busy with his work.  Students were proud of their work and their drawings often showing each other in the silence of the engaged room.  "Look at this" they would say to each other.

This week some interesting new dynamics came up.  One of those was students were more engaged, but still often rushed through their work.  We are finding that even with the ipad some kids are still rushing through their work.  For example, take the Vocab assignment in Sharae's class that took place, one young man ripped through his assignment with little to no effort where as other students were taking great pride in their assignment.  This student was asked by the Sharae to show her his work.  His pictures were lackluster at best, many of which did not showcase the vocab word very well.  Sharae pushed him to do more.  She pushed him to think and be more creative!  Perhaps too often in the "game of school" we have conditioned kids to do the bare minimum on similar non-ipad situations and this is all they know.  The culture is different in this environment.  With a tool like the ipad in their hands it completely changes the game!

We also had some parents share concerns with Sharae as well.  Concerns around them "surfing the internet" and "why are we using the iPads" and "I am concerned with my daughters grades (She has two B's) and I want all her work to come home".  All of these are valid because they come from parents, but it is obvious to me that perhaps parents need more education on this situation.  Kids are not allowed to "surf the internet" unsupervised at any point in this classroom.  Having the young girl bring home her work might not be as feasible at this point because we are housing things on the ipad and in their Google drive and trying to eliminate paper as much as possible.  Sharae spoke to her principal about the possibility of having a night where we invited parents in to showcase to them what we are doing and do some educating on what this is about and how it does change the classroom.

Laura use Popplet app to create an adjective web of their favorite animal.  Once they were completed with the assignment they could then upload it to their Google Drive.  They continued to use Kidblog app for blogging throughout the week as well.  We tried taking their Pearson Math test online using the iPad with very good success.  The only drawback became that typically Laura would allow them to go back and correct mistakes they had made and within the online test you could not do that.  Overall though taking the test on the ipad worked very well and if a student did not finish on time they could stop the test and come back and finish it later, they just couldn't fix their errors once they submitted their answers.
Laura also had the student's do a Geometry lesson using this GOOGLE DOC.  Students used that DOC combined with the Doceri app to complete the assignment.  Students are getting better and better at navigating between two open apps at a time.  Their proficiency of using the ipad and multitasking has greatly improved within the first few weeks.
Recently we had students create Doceri presentations on Equivalent fractions.
Check out this video created by Holli, a student in her class:  CLICK HERE TO VIEW

We did some blogging with both classes using the KidBlog app.  Sharae's classes wrote about "Creating their own classroom" for an elementary school.  They did a nice job considering we have just started blogging three weeks ago.
You can check them out here:
http://kidblog.org/MrsGeldes2013/
http://kidblog.org/MsSwansons2013/

The really cool thing on our blog posts has been we have already started getting responses / comments from a world-wide audience!  Places like the United Kingdom, Maine, Ireland, Georgia, and Missouri to name a few.

I want to commend Laura and Sharae for their work in the #ipadacademy so far!  They have been open-minded willing to fail and try new things as well as collaborate with me.  It has been a fun journey so far and I look forward to working with them in the weeks to come.

It's not about the Numbers

Recently I saw a tweet from someone that I follow on Twitter that said:

"If you follow everyone, you really are paying attention to nobody but yourself.  Common fail of Twitter."

Really?  This has inspired this post.

I often see folks tweeting about the numbers.  The numbers of followers they have, their 3000th tweet, etc.  Some of those folks may be genuine and just kind of excited about a given number, or perhaps even surprised when they look and see the number they see.  Reminds me of when I look down while driving the car and you hit some milestone like 70000 miles or something.  Nice big round numbers right?
Sometimes people joke around about what their 1000th tweet will be or who will be their 500th follower.  No big deal really.

Well I must say that I whole-heartedly disagree with this tweet mentioned above.  I know it is just an opinion and I can live with that.  My issue with it is deeper.

It amazes me how people think they have died and became the Twitter ruler of the earth.

Take my numbers for example, 8,205 tweets, 1,400 following, 1,680 followers:

What does this say about me?

ummmm NOTHING!  Numbers mean nothing, but sadly in my opinion many people put value in them.

If we evaluate the tweet that says if I follow everyone I am then perceived as selfish and only paying attention to myself in the opinion of this tweeter.  So if I read that tweet correctly, I have followed 1,400 people out of 1,680 that follow me,  this must mean I am a Twitter FAIL, right?

But let's consider what I do.  I am an instructional technology trainer for my district.  I have held countless twitter trainings for the teachers and admin of my district.  I teach online Twitter classes with my colleague Ann where they are required to follow us and of course WE FOLLOW THEM BACK in the hopes of showing them the power of twitter and the PLN!
The reality is many of those teachers and admin that I have trained or had take an online course with me have nothing to do with Twitter now and have not stuck with it and seen the "connected life" that I have grown to appreciate and that I think makes me a better educator.  Many of the people I follow back may just be lurkers, but so what, I don't care.
So does that make me a Twitter Fail?

In my position I will follow the educators I train in the hopes to encourage them to stay with it.  Bottom line.  This ain't about the numbers my friend.

I can remember a day when I thought it was so cool when a certain person on Twitter would follow me or someone followed me back after I followed them.  Man has that changed for me.  I think it is comical how some people on Twitter think they call all the shots of Twitter and they are the only ones who know anything about anything.  I like to call these folks the BIG DOGS.  They are the ones who get listed in some article as a "Top Ten Educator to Follow" or something and so what does everyone do, they follow them.  They have 10's of thousands of followers.  My question for you would be does this "amazing educator" that you "must" follow ever interact with you?  If you send them an @mention do they ever respond?  Or are they TOO BIG FOR THEIR BRITCHES?

This "celebrity" like status they have makes them think they are bigger and better than they really are.

So why not follow everyone that follows you?  BIG OR SMALL.  What's the harm in that?  Can't I easily unfollow someone with the click of a button if I am getting nothing from them or annoyed by what they tweet?
Perhaps when I follow someone that makes their day and excites them to stick with Twitter, and better yet, if they @mention me, I respond back, and since we follow each other they could send me a Direct Message and vice versa.  Pretty hard to do that when they don't follow you.

Twitter is about connections, about a Personal Learning Network, you can be as broad as you want in this network or as narrow, there is no law on how you are supposed to do it.  Do it how you want!

Perhaps this tweeter I mentioned above was referring to the SELF PROMOTION that goes on in twitter.  Perhaps he or she was referring to the idea that if I just go out and follow everyone I am doing that in the hopes that they will follow me back and therefore I will get more followers and feel good about myself and be able to self promote.  This of course happens too, so I'm not sure.  I would have asked this tweeter, but I didn't because if I did respond to this tweet I would not have gotten a response back.  Why you might ask?  Well I think I know the answer, but I'll let you sit on that one for yourself.  Perhaps I have responded to this person in the past and they have never responded back?  Thanks, but no thanks.  

At the end of the day this is not about the numbers.  It never has been for me and never will be.  I could care less about the numbers.  If you don't want to follow me, don't follow me, but maybe take a look at some old fashion manners.  Say thanks when props are given.  Acknowledge all folks.  Say please and thank you.  I don't think anyone died and made you TWITTER GOD.  Titles and accolades mean nothing.  It's about people and being genuine.  Anyone is replaceable no matter how good they think they are.

There are so many educators out there doing so many amazing things that each time my network grows because I follow someone or follow someone back that has followed me I continue to get better as an educator, learn new things, and get inspired.

What you get from me is what you get.  I am me.  Take it or leave it, but I assure you I am a genuine person whose head is not too big to fit through the doorway.

What do you think about that TWEET?

It's about that time

It's about that time my friends.

EDCAMP OMAHA is just around the corner!!

March 23rd, 2013 is just around the corner.  Roskins Hall on the UNO campus will soon be buzzing on Twitter with the hashtag #edcampomaha!  Educators from all over the region will be in attendance, both veterans and pre-service teachers.

White boards will fill up with sessions in the early Saturday morning and fantastic sharing, collaborating, and discussions will take place throughout that day even during the lunch break.

If you have not experienced an Edcamp it's all more the reason to come.  Come with an open mind.  Come with something you want to discuss with other educators.  There is nothing formal about an Edcamp, it's about discussions, it's about educators talking to other educators.  Wear jeans if you want to, no one cares.  It's not about suits and ties.  It's not about sit and gets and stand and delivers.  It's about sharing and learning from each other.  It's not about prepared presentations.  You can just take it all in if you want and not present, or you could start several different sessions if you want.

This is "nacho-typical" conference my friends.  There are no keynote speakers and "experts" being paid lots of money to be flown in.  It's just you, and me, and a whole bunch of others like us.

So think about it.  You can register for FREE.  There is no cost.  Holler at me if you have any questions about it.  Check it out on this website:  http://edcampomaha.wikispaces.com

I hope to see and meet you there because the more the merrier!  Maybe ask a friend to come with you?

See you March 23 if not before.