Learning in the Lou

You want: To create a Google Doc for an assignment. Then have each student get a copy of that Doc. The students then write on that Doc. They then turn it into Canvas to be graded Solution: Start by creating the Google Doc you want the kids to complete. Open your Canvas course. 1. Create an assignment. 2. Title it. 3. Add some context to the assignment. 4. Scroll down to Submission Type . Select External Tool . Then Find Google Drive by clicking Find . 1. When you clicked on Find you should see this new window pop up. 2. Find and click Google Docs Cloud Assignment . Search your Drive to find the Google Doc you created for the assignment. 1. Click the assignment . 2. Click Submit . Click Select . 1. You should now see an address. 2. Click Save or Save & Publish . This is what you will see as a teacher. A student will need to log in and click on the assignment to launch it. They can complete the...

Do you have a slide presentation you need to play on a rotation? Maybe it is a morning message, things the kids need to do or directions for a group? Did you know you can play Google Slides on a continuous rotation?  Check out what Deanna Folluo showed me, it is pretty epic. Start by opening the Google Slides you want to show. 1. Click File in the upper left. 2. Click Publish to the web . 1. Adjust the duration each slide will show for. It is critical to click the Restart button at the bottom. This will make sure the slide presentation restarts once it hits the last slide. 2. Click the Publish button. This will generate a new link. Copy and paste this address.  Don't forget to click Present to start the slide show.

It is that time of year and senioritis is hitting. Did you know you can add a note in Canvas so you can quickly scan down your list of students in the grade book and see which are seniors?  This grand idea comes from Sarah Pincus. Thanks for this awesome idea, Sarah!   Start by opening the grade book in your course. 1. Click View . 2. Click Notes . First Square - I added some notes to the Notes column. Second Square - Add notes, click Save .

I can't recall what tweet I found this on but I highly recommend taking a look at his presentation . It does a fantastic job of describing how to organize modules and files. I believe this is something every Canvas teacher can benefit from. The presentation was created by Dale Coleman , an instructional designer. I am so very impressed with his ideas. The ideas of improving the course navigation really jump out to me. Check out slides 9, 20 and 25.

This might be one of those things that forever changes your life. While Canvas is life changing with its SpeedGrader, portfolios of student work, one place for everything and syncing to SIS but you can now screencast from WITHIN Canvas! Thanks to Megan Farrow who figured this out and shared it.

This post was created to help teach podcasting to a few classes. What is a podcast? A podcast is an on-demand video or audio clip that is usually published sequentially. A listener/watcher can download or have the media automatically pushed to their device. The key to a great podcast is creating a show about something you are super passionate about but not necessarily an expert in. What does it sound like? It is sometimes hard to define something that really should be experienced. To understand you first must listen. Task Listen to a  tenish minute portion  of one of the podcasts listed below. Some of the links require you to log into Google Play Music on the web. If you are signed into your school Gmail account it should just pop open. Make sure you scroll to the proper episode. Use the Listening Guide to help you focus on specific elements of the podcast. A sample of the sheet we used to guide their thinking. You can just have them l...

This post was created to support the LHS gifted students.  Feel free to  print this guide  to help the students think and plan their shoot. We will be using the paper guide to help focus our thinking during our lesson. Purpose How do you use video to tell a story, convince someone of something or entertain them? In class, we will discover a few key techniques you can use to help tell your story in six minutes or less. 1. What do you watch now? This question helped frame our thinking around the videos we watch and why we watch them. What videos do you watch now? Why do you keep coming back? 2.  Balloon  - shot on an iPhone 6. We watched this video without any context the first time. For the second viewing, we split the class into six small groups. We then rewatched the video while the teams looked for one of the specific topics below. The big idea was to see how these video elements helped tell the story. angles the video was sh...