Keeping It Real With Google Keep

I will be the first to admit it, I need help to stay organized and on track.  With about a million things to do in a day (yes, I used a hyperbole) I tend to forget a few tasks here or there if I don't organize myself... I'm just keeping it real you all.

To stay organized, I have used Google Calendar, and I have downloaded a slue of notepads downloaded on my Android phone, but recently I have decided that Google Keep is an organizing superpower.  Keep allows you to save notes, create tasks, make checklists,  and it will even set reminders for you to help "Keep" you on track.

Notes in Google Keep

Keep is not your average notepad.  Indeed notes can be organized by labels and colors, but you can also

share your note with a collaborator.  Yes! You need not task alone.  😄I have found the ability to collaborate with Google Keep particularly useful during this time of remote learning.  You can also set up reminders to remind you about your note at a particular day and time OR you can ask Google Keep to remind you when you are near or when you enter a location using your GPS.  Cool right?  

Keeping Images in Keep

I like to save some of my favorite images in Google Keep so I can grab them when I need them.  Collecting images for classroom use can be handy and time-saving.  As an example, I like to use emojis as an organizational tool in Google Classroom. so  I store my most used emojis in Google Keep for quick reference.                                                       

As with notes, you can add collaborators on an image.  The cool thing is Keep allows you to write or annotate right on an image and you can save your annotations.  Additionally, Keep will pull the text from an image.  This is useful when taking pictures of notes, or when trying to pull text from a picture.  

Keeping on Track with Tasks and Checklists

I have to admit that the Checklist option in Google Keep is one of my personal favorite things.  It is so easy to use, you can check off tasks as they are completed.  Again, you can collaborate with others on your checklist and you can get the same reminders to help you get stuff done.  Cha-ching!  

Voice Dictation - Google Keep Mobile App

You're going to love this!  Google Keep's mobile app has voice dictation.  When you dictate a note, Keep will generate an audio recording AND it will transcribe it to text.  I know right? Game changer!

Google Keep and Google Docs

Google Keep and Google Docs play nice together.  You have the ability to copy notes, checklists, and images to a Google Doc.  I use voice dictation to capture an idea.  That voice dictation can then be put in a Google Doc.  Students can capture a discussion or an interview using voice dictation then copy their interview into a Google Doc.   What a powerful research tool to teach students!  Remember how you can grab text from an image?  That text can be inserted into a Google Doc too.  To grab text from an image and insert it in a Google doc follow these steps.

Disorganized people across the digital world unite!  Google Keep has got you covered and will help YOU to "Keep" it real. 

                                                      

Fantastic Features of Google Forms

Google Forms has been my go-to resource for digital quizzes for several years now.  I like its ease and simplicity and I love how it’s integrated with both Google Sheets and Google Classroom so I can easily give my students quizzes and generate grades and data.   (Awwwww data…)  When the Pandemic hit, I took another look at Google Forms and realized that the fantastic features of Google Forms make the tool perfect for other innovative classroom applications.  

Google Forms and Student Practice

Google Forms allow you to add feedback for correct and incorrect answer choices.   This option is fantastic for providing students with immediate feedback for incorrect responses in a way that paper and pencil classroom quizzes do not.  During this time of remote learning, this feature has become invaluable since much of my students’ practice time is online when I am not available to scaffold their learning.

“Bell Ringers” and “Exit Tickets”

I love using Google Forms as Bell Ringers and Exit Tickets.  They are easily assigned through Google Classroom and they are perfect for launching or wrapping up lessons.  Either can be assigned as a quick written response, a survey, multiple-choice quick check, checkboxes for understanding, or even assessing understanding with a linear scale.  Creating Google Forms Bell Ringers and Exit Tickets is as easy as popping them into a form and posting them on Google Classroom and the best part… doing so allows me to view responses anytime, anywhere. 

Flip your Classroom

Truly, Google Forms are fantastic for “Flipping” your classroom!  Flipping your classroom is moving your initial teach moments outside the 4 walls of your classroom to free up hands-on practice in the classroom.  Students can be asked to complete research on a topic, read a chapter from a novel, or watch a YouTube video (or a video you’ve created) and come ready to class (even a virtual one) the next day.  Google Forms are the perfect platform for 1. Ensuring that students did view and complete the assignment, and 2. allowing students to reflect on their learning first, before having to apply it.  

If I haven’t convinced you yet that the fantastic features of Google Forms make forms an essential tool for your classroom, let me just share some ideas with you of how forms can be incorporated into your digital classroom instruction:

Plot Diagram Close Read Quick Writes Journal Responses Thesis Statement Practice Hook Practice Dialectical Journals SWBST (Reading Strategy) KWL  Anticipation Guide Reading Log THIEVES (Reading Strategy) Vocabulary Study Biography Research Mystery Novel - Missing Person’s Report Digital Gallery Walks TELPAS Practice

STAAR (State Assessments) Practice Reading Analysis Digital Task Cards Digital Clue Web Quests Escape Rooms Scientific Research Scientific Method Science Investigative Journal Investigation Questions Survey Questions Math Word Problems Math Analysis of Incorrect Responses Math Process 3 Things I Learned/Takeaways Sum It Ups

… and so, so much more!!!  You are limited only by your imagination as the fantastic features of Google Forms make forms an invaluable part of remote learning in our 21st Century Distance Learning Classrooms!

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Digital Interactive Notebooks with Google Slides: The Students' Perspective

I am so excited to write this post!  Two years ago a coworker and I began an incredible journey, to try to do something different with our Interactive Notebooks.  We loved the idea of students having a centralized place for their learning, but we were frustrated with the classtime it took to cut things out, glue things in (incorrectly), and clean things up.  Yikes!  We needed a change, so we reimagined our spiral notebooks and went digital with them.  

We decided to use  Google Slides as our platform to create our Digital Interactive Notebooks or DINs.  I was hooked!  When I tell you that going digital with my interactive notebook fundamentally changed my teaching, I make no exaggeration.  In the two years since I have implemented DINs my teaching is more purposeful and streamlined; I spend far less time at the photocopier (oh the trees I have saved), and I got some valuable class time back.  More importantly, students had almost everything they need to be successful in one centralized place.   But after two years of implementing DINs in my classroom, I wondered what my students thought about them, so using Google forms, I gave my students a survey.  I had two areas of interest: First, how did they think about the general use of technology in our ELA classroom, and secondly, what did they really feel about our DINs.  

In the survey, I asked students to rank their overall technology abilities BEFORE and AFTER taking my class.

When asked to rate their technology abilities from novice to expert, 47% of my students ranked themselves as "expert" at the beginning of the year while 93% ranked themselves as experts at the end.  What a difference!!  That has been one of the amazing benefits of going digital in my classroom.  Students feel much more comfortable and confident when using technology.  

In response to the statement, "The use of technology in my ELA classroom enhanced my learning," 97% of students either agreed or completely agreed.  (In the comments the one student that leaned disagree said they are just more of a "paper-pencil" person.) 

In response to the statement, "I was able to apply the technology skills I learned in my ELA class in other classes I was enrolled in this year," 95% of students either agreed or completely agreed with the statement!  This response suggests that the technological tools I taught them benefited them outside of the four walls of our classroom.  Yes!

In addition, the vast majority of students responded that they thought that the technology they learned in my ELA classroom would help them in their future learning.  Outstanding!

The responses to questions that focused solely on our DINs were similar.  When asked if students preferred using DINs over a "traditional" spiral interactive notebooks, students overwhelmingly agreed.  In an open-ended response, some students liked the DINs because they couldn't lose them, or because it was something less they had to carry around in their backpacks.  I also wanted to know if my students thought the DINs helped to keep them more organized and if they ever used them outside of class to finish assignments or to study.  The results of those two questions are below.

In an open-ended response, I asked students to, "provide me with your general feedback on how we used Digital Interactive Notebooks in our ELA classroom this year. Did you like it? How would you say the notebooks could be improved?"

I had many positive responses like the one below.

"If I am being completely honest, at the beginning of the year, I did not think I was going to enjoy having it digital, because I am not a technologically savvy person, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Having it digital is so much easier than having it on paper; I am able to have my digital notebook wherever I go, and it is so much easier to order my information in a way that I can understand. At the moment, I can’t think of any way to improve the notebooks.  They are very efficient and they really helped me learn this year."

A few offered some constructive criticism like, "add more activities, provide a mouse for students to use, and the notebook had too many slides and sometimes it felt overwhelming."  

So with this highly unusual year at a close, I am over the moon with the results and encouraged to refine and perfect whatever digital challenges I may have to face next school year.  

So if you need me, you know where to find me.  I encourage you to go out try something new... challenge and flex your digital muscle.  Until we meet again, be safe, be healthy, AND be Googley!

 

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