This past weekend I had the absolute pleasure of spending Saturday with the most fun and energetic teachers at the Brooklyn College Academy in Brooklyn, New York. They were not only outstanding educators, but the friendliest and most helpful group ever! Thank you, thank you, Brooklyn friends for everything!
Another extra-special treat was to take my daughter, Ashlyn with me for a quick Mom/Daughter weekend in the Big Apple! While we were in Times Square Ashlyn got an email congratulating her on being accepted to her dream school the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University! Can you believe the timing? It was incredible! We saw Newsies and Pippin and loved them. We also got a very special, private backstage tour of Wicked. We even got to stand on the Wicked stage. Ashlyn was in heaven! Thank you, Laurie for making that happen!
Ok, now back to work…. While in Brooklyn, I had lots of interesting conversations with different teachers about technology tools they were currently using. We had great discussions about the use of Google Docs/Google Drive. Big thanks to the lovely teacher that shared about the Google Docs App you are using for recording voice for providing students feedback. I hope this is the same app you showed me, if not, please let me know.
If you are using Google Docs/Google Drive with your students you can add more tools and resources to your documents by installing Google Apps. It is a simple process and you can find all kinds of things you may need to enrich student learning with these apps.
1. Go to your Google Drive account and click on Create, as if you were starting a new document. Look at the bottom of that window and click on Connect More Apps.
2. Browse the apps or use the search bar for something you need. Click on the apps to install them to your account.
3. Some apps will now appear in the Create menu options. Others will appear when you actually select an already created document. Just right click on the document and choose from the added apps.
Isn’t that easy? Now you can have all kinds of helpful tools to make your documents and lessons more exciting! Here are a couple of Apps that you might like:
GeoGebra: An app for Geometry and Algebra work.
Kaizena: This app lets you annotate on a document and record voice comments. This is great for editing writing. You can type, write, and record your comments on the student’s work. This is awesome! Thanks for sharing this with me, my lovely Brooklyn teacher friend!
