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ClassDojo is a classroom communication app used to share reports between parents and teachers. Teachers track student behavior and upload photos or videos. The gamification style system teaches developmental skills through real-time feedback.

I use classDojo in the Cafeteria to help with managing noise and cleaningness. Students can earn points as a class and earn a prize at the end of the week.

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A flipped class (view image) is one that inverts the typical cycle of content acquisition and application so that: students gain necessary knowledge before class, and instructors guide students to actively and interactively clarify and apply that knowledge during class.

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https://goo.gl/8P6vHN

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As a teacher, you probably know about Google Docs. You've probably even been using pieces of it for years! But there's a lot more to it than just sharing documents and having an easy, cloud-based solution for your classroom. Over the years, I've gotten to learn about some pretty sweet features that have made my life as a teacher easier. These functionalities are built into Google Docs, and they are fantastic. Even though they might not be on your radar, take a look. You'll be glad you did!

1. Template Gallery

Why start from scratch when you could use a well-designed template? Whether you want to use Google Docs to draft your course syllabus, design a student certificate, formalize teaching notes, or plan a project for students, it's almost for sure you can find a template for that. Template Gallery is the place to go. In fact, there are hundreds of beautiful templates here for you to choose from. You can preview a template or use it directly, and it will open as a new file in Google Docs. This feature is often overlooked but isn't exactly hidden.

2. Offline Editing Mode

How many times you are working on a Google document and you can't type anymore because it says there is no Internet connection? What if you can still create, edit or view files even if you aren't connected? Introducing offline mode-a feature that allows you to save a copy of your edited documents on your computer and sync when you are back online. To enable offline mode, all you have to do is check this option (see the screenshot above) and click Done to continue. Note: offline access is only available in Chrome web browser, according to Google .

3. Extract Images in Batch

Despite being the most powerful online word processor, Google Docs doesn't make it easy for users to directly save images embedded in the content (nope, copy and paste doesn't work in most cases). So if you want to reuse lots of images in a Google document, it can be cumbersome to extract them one by one. But there is still a way to get this done a lot quicker. On the menu, select File > Download as > Web page (.html, zipped) , a zip file will be downloaded. Double-click to open it, and you'll see a folder called "Images." Yep, all images should be there. Courtesy to SoftwareHow for this fantastic tip.

4. Research via Explore

For those who don't know, back in September, the official Google Docs blog announced several updates , one of which was the old Research tool being replaced by Explore. You can access the feature via Tools > Explore , or click the Explore icon at the bottom right of any documents. Just type a keyword in the search box, alternatively, you can highlight a few words in your document, right click and select "Explore '(highlighted words)'", then you'll see a list of resources showing up. These include web results and images. You then can add or insert those results you like for reference. For web results, you can "cite as footnote" and the Explore tool allows you to change citation format (MLA, APA, Chicago).

5. Suggesting Mode

While the ability to directly edit or make changes in a Google document is great, it is sometimes rude to change others' text. There are times (for example, when you and your students are collaborating on a project or doing peer evaluation) you may only want to suggest changes-without actually making any, unless the person accepts the changes. That's what Suggestion Mode has to offer. To enter the mode, first look in the toolbar with an editing pencil icon, click on the arrow next to the pencil icon and select "Suggesting." Only the author of the document has the power to approve or disapprove any suggested changes.

6. Make PDF files (even scanned) editable

PDFs offer many advantages over other file types, but they are not easy to work with because PDFs are essentially images and they are much restrictive. Scanned PDF files are even harder to handle. Chances are you'll have to convert them into editable texts. Thanks to Optical Character Recognition, a technology built in Google Docs, allows you to convert PDFs and images into pure text formats. On Google Drive Settings, simply check the option called "Convert uploaded files to Google Docs editor format," and you're ready to go. I discovered this technique while exploring guides to convert PDF to Word on Mac .

7. Voice Typing

Google Docs also supports voice typing. All you need is the Chrome browser and a working microphone built into your computer or connected externally. To get to voice typing, open a document, on the menu, select Tools > Voice typing . Select the language you'll speak (by default, it's English). When you are ready, click on the microphone image to enable the voice recognition. Click on it again to toggle it off. Although I feel it's a little bit like talking to a robot, I love the feature and hope you do, too.

8. Create Your Own Shortcuts

Google Docs have already provided a number of shortcuts for us (like changing (c) to ©), but what if you want to make a few of your own? For instance, it might be a good idea to add frequently misspelled words, mimic popular text expansion applications, or autocorrect your errors without running a spell check. You can do all of those via Google Docs Preferences ( Tools > Preferences > Automatic substitution ). Just fill in the "replace" and "with" blanks and you are good to go.

9. Image Editing

Normally you have to rely on third-party tools to edit an image, such as crop it, add colorful borders or adjust transparency, etc. But in Google Docs, you can do all of these without leaving the app. Once you insert an image (from the menu, or just drag and drop it) and select it, you'll see an editing toolbox becoming available on the menu. To crop an image, select it in your document and click the crop icon in the toolbar. From there, drag the blue handles to your desired locations and hit "Enter" on your keyboard. The Image Options are also very useful, and they allow you to recolor and adjust transparency, brightness, and contrast. Don't forget that you can reverse any operations by clicking the "Reset Image" icon and this will restore the image to its original state.

10. Browse Education Add-ons

Google Docs offer tons of basic word processing and editing functions, but it's unrealistic to integrate all tools and features to the menu. What's the solution? The Adds-on is a place for those whose needs stretch beyond the most basic functions. To access the Adds-on Store, click Add-ons > Get Add-ons from the menu. Select "Education" from the dropdown list; you'll be surprised with the massive extensions you can use, most are free. For example, EasyBib Bibliography Creator allows you to generate citations quickly. Easy Accents is a great tool to insert accents for different languages directly from the sidebar in Google Docs.

What are your Google Docs tricks?

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10 Ways to Use Google Docs in the Classroom - WeAreTeachers

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Learn how to use google docs in your classroom to make learning interesting for your students and life a lot easier for yourself!

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Edmodo, also known as "Facebook for school," is the premier social media and learning platform for teachers and students alike.

Founded in 2008, the site has since gained over 20 million users. The K-12 social media network continues to grow and is now available in six languages, including Spanish, German and Greek.

The platform's app equivalent brings portability into the equation, which means educators, students and even parents can always access Edmodo when they need it.

With Edmodo, teachers can truly bring the classroom online. With the ability to give assignments, quizzes and polls to students, Edmodo users can manage their classes and consolidate all of their activities in one place.

Users also have unlimited options in terms of sharing digital content. Teachers can embed instructional videos, create learning groups for students, and manage calendar events.

Communities allow teachers to browse subjects in order to find and share information within a broad stream of content and conversations related to that topic.

The platform offers numerous organizational features for teachers, even offering an option for users to print out rosters for substitutes. Badges are another fun feature, allowing educators to monitor the progress of student groups and issue awards for their achievements.

Enterprising educators can even use Edmodo to connect with other classrooms around the globe. Whether they're studying a foreign language, history, economics or another subject, partnering with a class online can be both socially engaging and culturally rewarding for students.

How Administrators Can Use It

Edmodo is just as great for district administrators and principals. They can use the platform to coordinate and collaborate with leadership teams. They also can give feedback to-and receive it from-other educators.

Planning professional development seminars can be a breeze, especially with SchoolTube, Edmodo's video service.

Students also stand to benefit from the platform. They can access extra help from peers, instructors or SchoolTube. They're also able to turn in work for teacher review and get instant feedback, including teacher annotations. Beyond being able to join groups for clubs, sports and other activities, students (especially younger ones) can learn how to interact safely and appropriately online.

And Don't Forget Parents

On Edmodo, even the 'rents get in on the action. Parents get the option to log in either as their children or themselves. They can review the child's work, grades and more. They also can receive updates from their child's teachers regarding missed assignments and school happenings. Most importantly, Edmodo helps educate parents about the digital literacy skills that all 21st-century students need.

Now, with even a photo editing software function included, Edmodo is truly a Web 2.0 "Swiss Army knife" for educators and other stakeholders in K-12 education.

Article by Jason Cunningham, EducationWorld Social Media Editor
Education World®
Copyright © 2013 Education World

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Edmodo, also known as "Facebook for school," is the premier social media and learning platform for teachers and students alike. Founded in 2008, the site has since gained over 20 million users. The K-12 social media network continues to grow and is now available in six languages, including Spanish, German and Greek.

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https://goo.gl/vv2cGV

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Creative Ways to Use Google Slides in the Classroom

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Creative Ways to Use Google Slides in the Classroom Link to presentation Jennifer L. Scheffer Google for Education Certified Trainer & Innovator MA GEG Leader Technology Integration Specialist, Fox Hill School Burlington Public Schools @jlscheffer jennscheffe654@gmail.com www.jennscheffer.com Goo…

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https://www.screencastify.com/

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Capture anything.

Record your entire desktop, an application, current browser tab or just your webcam.

Make it personal.

Embed your webcam anywhere in your recording, and narrate with your microphone.

Lives in Chrome.

Our extension operates within your browser. No bulky software download required.

Record offline.

No internet connection required until you upload your video to Google Drive or YouTube.

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Mt. Vernon | Bakersfield City School District

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Bakersfield City School District programs, activities, and practices shall be free from unlawful discrimination, including discriminatory harassment, intimidation, and bullying based on actual or perceived characteristics of race or ethnicity, color, ancestry, nationality, national origin, ethnic group identifications, age, religion, marital or parental status, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, or genetic information or any other characteristic identified in Education Code 200 or 220, Penal code 422.55, or Government Code 11135, or based on association with a person or group with one or more of these actual or perceived characteristics.

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ClassDojo helps teachers, parents, and students build amazing classroom communities.

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goo.gl/8FTB37

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I know this may sound surprising, but believe me when I say: You CAN improve your child's ability to regulate their emotions in only 7 minutes per day. We are all busy and live hectic lives. It can be hard to make time for new activities, especially if they are time-consuming. But in only 7 minutes each day, you can improve emotional regulation and help your child encounter less stress and meltdowns.

E motional regulation is the ability to effectively manage and respond to an emotional experience. People unconsciously use emotion regulation strategies to cope with difficult situations many times throughout each day.

When a child experiences dysregulation they aren't able to diffuse their negative emotions. These emotions can take control leading to over-the-top reactions, outbursts, or meltdowns. This is an extremely common challenge for kids who have Autism, ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder, or other neurological differences.

Emotional regulation can be achieved in two ways. Self-regulation means you can regulate your emotions on your own. Mutual regulation means you need someone help you regulate your emotions.

Most individuals with autism need help sometimes, or even all the time, with emotional regulation. However, you can improve emotional regulation in just 7 minutes per day with exercise. The exercise needs to be intense. Short intensive bursts provide better results than longer durations of exercises with less impact.

I have created a 7-minute workout, designed to be fun for kids and high-impact for maximum benefits!

It's amazing how this works. Our mind, brain, and body are all interconnected.

When your child is dysregulated, their brain produces high levels of the stress hormone, cortisol. It also produces adrenaline. An increase in cortisol spikes anxiety and dysregulation.

When this occurs, functional and social communication skills decreases. This is what leads to meltdowns which cause a huge spike in adrenaline. Some research suggests that during a meltdown an individuals IQ even drops by 30 points.

Exercise has been proven to reduce cortisol and adrenaline levels. This lessens anxiety and results in increased dopamine and other endorphins. These are the brain's natural mood lifters. Less cortisol and more dopamine mean self-regulation is much easier.

The benefits don't stop there though - the increased dopamine levels improves the functions of synapses in the brain. As a result communication ability improves, as does the ability to retrieve information.

This means that overall the brain is in a better state for learning.

For this workout you will need:

An interval timer (I use an app literally called Interval Timer)

Water

Sneakers

Music

Optional: kids yoga mat

That's it. You can do this exercise anywhere.

Shove some furniture out of the way if you need to make a little more room.

Ideally, this should be done first thing in the morning, especially on school days. These exercises provide unparalleled stimulus, making an environment where the brain is ready and willing to learn. Basically, in order to learn, understand, and apply new knowledge there needs to be a proper balance of neurochemicals in the brain to bind neurons together. Otherwise, the information is not efficiently retained in long-term memory. It will also help your child start their school day it a positive emotional state.
Set your interval timer for 7 rounds of 45 seconds of work, and 15 seconds of rest, totaling 7 minutes.
Get your kiddos favorite upbeat music on and get ready to go hard. Your child (and you! You've got to model what you want to see!) should be doing as many of these exercises as possible in 45 seconds. You actually want to be tired, breathing heavy, and heartbeat elevated at the end of this 7 minutes.

These exercises are all animal themed by the way to make them fun for kids!

Frog Hops

These are exactly what they sound like. Hop back and forth, like a frog. Depending on how much room you have, you may need to hop in one place.

Bear Walk

Place your hands and feet on the floor. Your hips and butt should be in the air, higher than your head. On all fours take two steps forward and two steps back, then repeat.

Gorilla Shuffles

Sink down into a low sumo squat and place your hands on the ground between your feet. Shuffle a few steps to the left and then back a few steps to the right. Maintain the squat and ape-like posture through the entire movement.

Starfish Jumps

These are jumping jacks! Do as many as you can, arms and legs spread wide like a starfish!

Cheetah Run

Run in place, as fast as you can!

Crab Crawl

Sit with your knees bent and place your palms flat on the floor behind you near your hips. Lift your body off the ground and "walk" on all fours forward and then backward.

Elephant Stomps

Stand with your feet hip-width apart and stomp, raising your knees up to hip level, or as high as you can bring them up. Try to hit the palm of your hands with your knees.

And You're Done!

Take some time to cool down slowly.

Do some stretches or yoga poses and allow your heart rate to return to normal. Those 7 minutes will give you and your kiddos a boost that will leave you feeling great for hours! The animal theme makes this work out enjoyable for kids. Encourage them to use their imagination and make this work out feel like play.

Aside from helping to improve emotional regulation, there are other benefits to high-intensity exercise for kiddos with autism. HIIT has also been proven to:

Helps kids fidget less

Improve sensory integration

Become more focused

Have a heightened ability to process new information (better learning)

Improve communication skills

Positively influence learning on a cellular level

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Improve Emotional Regulation In Just 7 Minutes Per Day · Raising An Extraordinary Person

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I know this may sound surprising, but believe me when I say: You CAN improve your child's ability to regulate their emotions in only 7 minutes per day. We are all busy and live hectic lives. It can be hard to make time for new activities, especially if they are time-consuming.

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I
recently came across Kidblog just a few months ago and I AM IN LOVE! There are so many ideas for this
awesome website!

It isa FREE and safe way to enhance the writing process in your classroom. It allows students to blog in a way secured by the classroom teacher. Blogs can be private (just viewable by students and teacher) or teacher can optfor it to be public and share with others. This is GREAT for sharing withparents.

Teachers can create password protected parent and guest accounts to the community if they wish.

I began by starting it just for my early finishers to use to enhance their writing. I can instantly see a difference in their computer skills. I like to have my kids plan for what they are going to write. However, as months progressed I started using it for reading comprehension. When kids read books I had them write a text to self/book/world in a thread.

I also let my students, "Free Blog" and write whatever they want. These kids LOVE to write because they feel cool blogging. They love that they can share their ideas. I have had kids become friends because they read each others blog posts and realized they had more in common than they first thought!

I really like that I can opt to control everything. A student can write a post or comment, but it is not viewable until I approve the posting. I can easily tell a student, "you made some grammatical errors so check the post again and then I'll approve it".

All of the third grade teachers at my school use Kidblog. We have shared each other's

What are some ideas that you use Kidblog in your classroom?

Do you take a grade on anything that they write on Kidblog?

How do you deal with kids wanting to "Text Type" (LOL, OMG, etc) ?If you would like to reinforce quality student commenting, I recommend my posters and bookmarks. Click the picture to see them in detail.

Amber is a passionate 3rd grade 1:1 iPad teacher who loves creating resources to fit her students needs and finding ways to keep her classroom digitally savvy.

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Kidblog: Starting Kidblog for the 1st time

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I recently came across Kidblog just a few months ago and I AM IN LOVE! There are so many ideas for this awesome website! It isa FREE and safe way to enhance the writing process in your classroom. It allows students to blog in a way secured by the classroom teacher.

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This post first appeared on Edudemic.

Rapidly approaching the dog days of summer ( give or take a few days or weeks), I felt a need to share a power packed suitcase of tools that could be used to archive your summer highlights and memories. Many educators never really go on vacation. While they may appear to be leisurely sipping daiquiris on the beach, let's be realistic... their brains are constantly running, reflecting, and mentally archiving away ideas for the next school year. To meet both the recreational and curricular needs of educators, I have concocted a special blend of FREE web tools and apps, highlighting both extracurricular as well as instructional integrations for each. Hopefully, these tools will exceed your souvenir quota and prove to be true digital treasures for the 2014-2015 school year as well.

Create 360 panoramic bubbles of the sights and sounds of places you visit that others can explore by clicking on a shared link.

Recreational: Share 360 views of your favorite destinations in a weekend photo challenge. (Examples)

Curricular: Compose a 360 bubble of a classroom remodel to share with parents and the community. (Example)

Transform photos into mapped masterpieces.

Create an interactive photo album.

Send a digital postcard with text, photos, and even links.

Recreational: Everyone enjoys receiving postcards... whether it be by snail mail or electronic. While most postcard apps allow users to share only one photo, consider sharing additional travel photos with friends and family via a Photo Stream link which can easily be pasted into the text portion of a digital postcard.

Curricular: Descriptive Writing, Imaginative Stories, Reflective Writing, and Physics Challenges using digital postcards.

Create a comic of your adventures.

These 4 tools were featured in a recent post, "5 Tools for the Device Agnostic Classroom". While they clearly have sound curricular connections, they can also be extended to transform and archive your multimedia memories into a digital depot that can be shared with friends and family.

Highlight Each Day of a Trip with a Multimedia Guide.

Publish a Slideshow of Trip Pics and Anecdotes

Create a Multimedia Travelogue!

Augment a Photo, Map, or Collage!

As the true intent of these applications is to blend engaging extracurricular artifacts of summer with ideas for integrating these digital gems all year long, let the learning and sharing continue all summer long. Share your digital creations with your social and personal learning network and keep the learning rolling all summer long and beyond.
To learn more from Lisa Johnson, you can hear her at the July 28-30 EdTechTeacher Summit. She will also be teaching a three day iPad Classroom workshop in Austin, TX this August. Lisa Johnson is also the author of the and curates multiple ed tech and technology integration resources on her TechChef4u blog popular Pinterest boards.

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9 Powerful (and FREE) Tools to Boost Summer Learning - From Lisa Johnson - EdTechTeacher

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This post first appeared on Edudemic. Rapidly approaching the dog days of summer (give or take a few days or weeks), I felt a need to share a power packed suitcase of tools that could be used to archive your summer highlights ... Read more