Digital Conferring and Collaborating

Digital Conferring and Collaborating - NCTE 2017

This post was created as a reference for a presentation given at NCTE 2017.

I was the teacher with a million different systems to keep all my notes organized. My first strategy was a clipboard with a note card for every student taped to it. I was kinda slick except I would forget it at school, outside or in a different classroom. I never had my notes when I needed them. That system fell apart way too fast.

The next was Post-It notes. I'm sure you know how that ended, tons of money spent and notes all over the place.

Evernote was awesome but I always found it hard to use. The one part that was sweet, audio record right in the note. That might be the killer feature that separates Evernote from everything else.

Google Forms was OK but reading words on a spreadsheet is maddening.

I was at a loss. Nothing was working well and I was chasing the elusive productivity monster.

A year or so ago I attended a Google edcamp and stumbled upon an add-on for Google Sheets, this chance encounter changed everything. I'm sure there are a million different ways to do this but I have found that using docAppender has opened more doors than I expected.

Getting Started

Overview Video - Watch this to understand the whole process.

1. Create a folder in Google Drive. All of your student Google Docs will be housed in this one folder.
2. Create a Google Form.
3. Run docAppender and watch the magic.

Workflow - here is a digital copy of the step-by-step process to creating a form with docAppender. While it may appear to be a lot of steps it can be completed in under 4 minutes.

Engaging Today's Learners to Create Tomorrow's Readers and Writers - padlet we used during the session.

Resources
docAppender

When a doc is better than a sheet. A post we wrote last year for our teachers.
docAppender official site
docAppender - The Ultimate Peer Assessment Tool - a blog we found online talking about how he uses docAppender.
Using docAppender with Google Classroom - a PE teacher's approach.

Conferencing/Conferring

I used the following posts while researching this topic.

Like your ELMO but with an iPad (elementary classroom teachers)

I used AirServer to create the infinity mirror effect. We were in a meeting today and Dominic told us about this fantastic idea. As we discussed all things technology he explained one method of using the iPad as a portable ELMO. It was too cool not to share. Step 1 Make sure you have AirServer running on your laptop. 1. Click the Windows key on your keyboard or click the icon in the lower left of your screen. 2. Just start typing AirServer. 3. Click AirServer. Don't see it? Contact technology or your building tech person. Step 2 Connect your teacher iPad to your laptop. 1. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Start by swiping in the bezel, the black plastic part surrounding the screen. 2. Click AirPlay Mirroring. 3. Click your name. Step 3 Open the camera app and instant portable ELMO! Anything you see in the camera's len will be broadcast to the big screen. I just used this method to take a picture of my notebook as a demonstration of how co

Who is emailing me? The Blue Man Group??? (Add an image to your Google account.)

WHY It is always nice to put a face with a name. Sometimes we need a tiny little reminder of what someone looks like because we don't see them very often. Follow these steps to add/change the image associated with your Google account. HOW Open your email. Click your image. It might just be a blue circle if you have not added something already. Click Change . Find an image you like. Your amazing new image will appear. From now on everyone can put a name to a face!

Annotate PDF? How might I do that?

So I have a PDF and I need to edit it. Here is one method that works pretty well for me. Open Word. Click File . 1. Click Open . 2. Click Browse . 3. Find the PDF you want to annotate. 4. Click Open . Click OK when you see this box. Bam! Your PDF now opens in Word. Note: you maybe have to click Enable Editing at the top of the screen. Finished editing and want to turn it back into a PDF? Click File . 1. Click Save As . 2. Click This PC . 3. Pick a location. I usually save things to my desktop. 4. Click Save as type - and choose PDF. 5. Click Save .

Learning in the Lou

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