Jumping on the lip dub bandwagon

Recently, as part of the Follett Challenge, my school created a campus-wide lip dub, modeled after some other greats:

• Meadow Lane Elementary Lip Dub
• Shorewood High School Lip Dub (done backwards!)

However, we only had two weeks to create our own lyrics, beat, and audio recording AND...assign classes themes, students roles in the lip dub, and TIME the lip dub to make sure it only lasted five minutes from point A to point Z. The most challenging aspect was making sure we made it to each target/location in the school by the specified time and that the students were ready (with PreK and Kinder, this proved difficult). 

In the end, all students came prepared, dressed in red and blue (our school colors) and equipped with the appropriate technology to represent their class.. 

Check out the finished product: Forest North: The Movie.

And, be sure to vote on the video starting on February 6, 2013 through March 18, 2013. 

formMule--the best thing since sliced bread

Want to automate your "contact us" feature so that, whenever someone completed the Contact Us Form, it automatically sends it to the correct person? Do you want to automate a principal's observation checklist so that, whenever a principal completes the information about the observation, it automatically sends a follow-up email to the teacher? Well, formMule is your answer! Check out this great appscript available in Google's Script Gallery!

http://www.youpd.org/formmule

Lip Dubs invade school

Though, it's kind of 2010 all over again, lip dubs are a great way to get the whole school involved in a technology production. One standard feature of a lip dub is one video run without any cuts. However, what if a lip dub was done with an added technological element? Or, students put on their own lip dubs to showcase a topic. 

For instance, we are in the works of creating our own lip dub that showcases digital literacy at our school. Students and staff will hold up signs explaining the aspects of digital literacy that are present AND students and staff will play out digital literacy scenarios. 

Though entertaining, lip dubs actually involve a lot of planning and practice as a community. Check out some of these videos to get your creative juices flowing:

Here's one done at an elementary school: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcSjbuUVQDo

Here's one with teachers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzDFuCIcxtkAnd, here's one done at the Seattle Children's Hospital in the cancer ward: http://gawker.com/5908947/this-lip-dub-at-seattle-childrens-hospital-will-make-you-cry?post=48487211
An edited lip dub: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iBK9q8-9doLip-dubbing backwards (my personal favorite): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7TI-AJi2O8

Creating GeoMaps in Google Spreadsheets

An often underused feature of Google Spreadsheets is the chart feature. When you create a spreadsheet from either a spreadsheet or a form, you have the ability to insert a chart with selected data. That chart has great educational potential.

For instance, you can make a GeoMap chart to show regions where more people live or where more people  want to travel, etc. You could also do one over political turmoil. As students enter in data, they can plot a variety of charts.

Check out some of the great charts Google offers tutorials on (beginning with Google's GeoMap chart):

Google Charts and more!

Digital Learning Day

Are you celebrating? If not, find out why you should!

At one of my campuses, we are using Digital Learning Day, February 6, 2013 (second inaugural) to bring in local "techsperts" to speak to our students. We are have students showcase their own digital learning to the community. And, we are using the day to celebrate the ways in which our students are prepared for the 21st century.

Interested? Read more here.

Want to participate? Find out more ways!

Ready to spread the word? Start now!

Digital Learning Day is sponsored by AT&T, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, ISTE, SMART, Pearson, ETS, Intel, Verizon, and many, many more.

Check out Digital Learning Day and see what you can do to celebrate student, teacher, and community achievements.

Google Literacy?

What does meaning literate mean in the age of Google and new technologies?

Dan Russell of Google gives a great lecture on new age literacy. He is one of their lead "searchers" and defines a new way of acquiring, gathering/building, and sharing knowledge.

Check out his speech to Princeton University in February 2012:

http://hulk03.princeton.edu:8080/WebMedia/flash/lectures/20120228_publect_russell.shtml

Scripts and extensions galore with Google

A few days ago, a teacher asked me about finding a tool to translate speech to text. Since our district does not supply tablets to all students and teachers, an app like Dragon was out of the question. Therefore, I turned to Chrome extensions--a great tool to use if you haven't already.

How do you find Chrome extensions? Click on your settings box in the far right of your Chrome browser. It looks like three horizontal lines. Select tools-->extensions. If you already have some extensions, it will open up to your existing ones so just click on "get more extensions." From there, you will enter the Chrome extensions store and can browse for a variety of extensions from video downloaders to speech to text tools.

Simple Dictation is a free extension that appears as a microphone in the top right of your Chrome browser. When you are ready to dictate, simply click on the microphone. It will open up a new tab with a microphone and text box. Click the microphone (again) in this screen and begin speaking. It will stop recording if you stop for more than 5 seconds. When you start talking again, it will erase your old speech. However, it will appear at the bottom under "Previous Dictations." There is also a button to compose an email from the Simple Dictation screen. When you click on it, it opens up your gmail account and pastes your most recent dictation into the email body. The accuracy is fantastic and--even better--it's free! It's definitely worth a try.

Aside from Chrome extensions, scripts are another way to take a Google product above and beyond. AutoCrat is probably my favorite script (along with Flubaroo--the self-graded quiz script). AutoCrat is like mail merge on steroids. Here's what it does: it takes data in a spreadsheet and merges it into a Google Docs template that can be automatically emailed out to people. However, that description doesn't do it justice. If you recall, a spreadsheet can also be a form. So, in that sense--AutoCrat can merge data entered into a spreadsheet into templates. Why is that so neat? For one, I am having students apply to become a Tech Star at our elementary campus. When they complete the online form, they are required to type in the name of two teachers who could give recommendations as well as a parent or guardian's name and email address. I also have a recommendation letter template composed that has fields for the teacher's name and student information. Therefore, as students submit forms, their information is merged with the recommendation letters and the letters are automatically sent out to the teachers to complete. And, the best part is that AutoCrat creates a new column in the data spreadsheet with links to the newly created merged documents. There are a variety of times that you could benefit from having documents autogenerated from forms that others complete. If you like this, read this informative article on AutoCrat (complete with instructions).