Semester Wrap up

Subject	Tuesday TIC Tip
From	CJ Mcdonald
To	EX All; ORALL
Sent	Tuesday, December 16, 2014 5:43 AM



Colleagues,
                Two whole weeks!  From talking to some of you, it may be busier than during a work week for some of you!  I’ll not pile anymore information onto your “TIC” pile.  I challenge you to go through a few of my old emails and just check out and play with some of the things.  Literally play around with them: I always make a video of my daughter to play with video tools to see if I like it or not.


Some successes from the semester:
1. We made it through the printer/wifi/PC chaos at the beginning of the year!
2. Nearly everybody has been synced to OneDrive and thus has their files backed up!
3. Kahoot was particularly popular with the staff and students as a formative assessment
4. The District Technology Committee has been working on K12 Technology standards to guide instructional decisions in regards to student technology use
5. Seriously: the hottest new mobile game for students is called Trivia Crack.  Its trivial pursuit.  Seriously that’s their favorite (nothing about tying ropes, or juicing candies or call of auto theft….).  I’d say try it over the break but you won’t get anything else done.  They aptly used the word “crack” in the title…


Goals for 2nd semester successes:
1. I would like to meet with teams in addition to individuals for technology instruction (so I can cover more ground)
2. I would like to document that teachers are proficient in:
1. Google Drive
2. OneDrive
3. Office Products
3. I would like to see a marked improvement in communication with parents and students.  I will continually encourage people to use at least one of these:
1. Websites
2. Blogs
4. Teach surveys as a form of digital turning in
1. Sharing is laboursome, even in Google where it actually works
2. Creating a survey for kids to enter a url of their work will make your life MUCH easier.




Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!  I will have my email “on”, so go ahead and let me know if you have any questions!  I’ll get to them at some point.


CJ McDonald
Linn-Mar Community School District
Middle School Technology Integration Coach
(319) 892-4856
LM TICs Website: http://ow.ly/AxFhK

Syncing Data, Google Form Making

Subject	Tuesday Tic Tip
From	CJ Mcdonald
To	EX All; ORALL
Sent	Tuesday, December 09, 2014 6:15 AM



Morning all,
                I hope everything is going well—late Thanksgivings really make the pre-Christmas time fly by!  Since this email is about data, I thought I’d post one of my favorites:



--- yes I know I’m a dork—I’ve accepted that long ago.   


Below is the overall data I have for the OneDrive syncing I’ve done.  We are almost done!  I’ve had a lot of great conversations about where and how to save documents! (HERE is the video I made a couple weeks ago about OneDrive syncing in case you missed it last time)





The way I did the chart above is creating a form (survey) that I fill out after I speak with each one of you.  Then I have created a pivot table and a pivot chart to visualize my data.
HERE is how to make a Google form (first 8 slides).
HERE is a video I found on making a Google sheets pivot table.
I’m learning a little more about these each time I help someone with this, so if you have data or information you’d like to visualize in some way, please set up a meeting with me to help you! 


Workshops:
• Syncing OneDrive
• Using Google Sheets & Excel to visualize data


Oak Ridge (Computers Classroom)
• Wed. 7:15-7:45 AM
• Thursday 3:00-3:30 PM


Excelsior
• Tuesday 3:00-3:30 (early this week!  Sorry that’s just what I have to do to make it happen!)
• Thursday 7:15-7:45 AM


Go out and dominate today!


CJ McDonald
Linn-Mar Community School District
Middle School Technology Integration Coach
(319) 892-4856
LM TICs Website: http://ow.ly/AxFhK

Personal Learning Networks (social media and education)

Subject	Tuesday Tic Tip
From	CJ Mcdonald
To	ORALL; EX All
Sent	Tuesday, December 02, 2014 6:15 AM



Colleagues,
                Hope you all had a great break!  Christmas will come quickly this year with such a late Thanksgiving.  I have been working with a lot of individuals.  The next couple years we will be continuing to transform the culture of the school to be more collaborative…it will be more in the vein of that culture shift to begin meeting with your teams (and more efficient).  If there is a project that needs tweaking or even discussed, I’d love to come meet during your Team Time.  Keep that in mind!  Please don’t interpret that as me not being happy to meet with you individually, I would just like to meet with teams when possible.


Over the next week or two so I hope to accomplish my goal of syncing everybody’s hard drive and have a file storage strategy discussion with them! 


With some “free time” coming up (Winter break), I thought that people would like to get a little learning or entertainment in… So.  On to Twitter:
A lot of what I have learned about education and technology has come from my PLN (Personal Learning Network).  This is a series of blogs and twitter feeds that I follow.  I often read about ideas other educators have and up to date research on the go as I am doing something else.  These resources are always there for me and can fill as little as a couple minutes or can dive into a couple of hours of interest.  I highly suggest that teachers develop their own PLN.


To do this, I suggest:
• Setting up a twitter account—one where you are able to express your opinions, and not to have a bunch of kids “follow you”.
• If you are interested but intimidated, let me know I can walk you through this!!
• Find a lot of ideas on who to “follow” (get their tweets) HERE
• Or you can find someone you trust and look at who they follow…that’s what I did.
• Go ahead and follow @lionleaders, or if you don’t get annoyed with a mix of educational and non-education tweets; @cjmcdonald61581
• You can find lots of times were people gather and discuss specific topics HERE. 
• As you find blogs you like, bookmark them to visit them periodically—many people tweet a link to their blog posts, so  you may have access to many small blogs through twitter.
• Heck, go ahead and create a professional blog of your own!  Even if nobody reads the thing is still good documentation or reflection tool (remember, reflection is how EVERYONE learns…)
• Its pretty easy.  HERE are the instructions for that.


Workshops for this week:
Topic: Personal Learning Network set up and exploration
Oak Ridge (Computers Lab)
• Friday 7:15-7:45
• Friday 3:00-3:30


Excelsior
• Wed. 3:00-3:30
• Thursday 3-3:30


CJ McDonald
Linn-Mar Community School District
Middle School Technology Integration Coach
(319) 892-4856
LM TICs Website: http://ow.ly/AxFhK

Bookmarking in Chrome

Subject	Tuesday Tic Tip
From	CJ Mcdonald
To	ORALL; EX All
Sent	Tuesday, November 25, 2014 6:43 AM



Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving week!


A couple notes before the tips:
• None of the Teacher Leaders will be available next Monday and Tuesday (including myself)
•  Not to be sappy, but I am thankful for all of you who have invited me in to your classrooms.  I gambled on this position this year; I love teaching kids.  My goal was to influence more students in this position than I could’ve as a classroom teacher.  There is no data that can prove the success of that goal, but the staffs at both MS have really embraced the challenge of technology integration.  I cannot tell you how personally grateful I am of that.


Anyway….on with a REALLY USEFUL TIP FOR EVERYONE!!!


Just wanted to give you a small tip this week about signing into Chrome.  (this same thing can be done with FireFox, but slightly different buttons to push)


Signing into Chrome is something that you can do at home and here at school to make sure that your internet settings and bookmarks are the same everywhere you sign in.  This certainly has value; you can bookmark a website at home and its in the bookmarks when you come to school automatically.


THIS HAS HUGE IMPLICATIONS FOR STUDENTS!


If students can bookmark class websites or other important chrome apps for their education, they can access it no matter which computer they log onto in school or at home.  This allows them little programs and webpages at their finger tips everywhere they have an internet browser.


Here is the advanced version:


1. Have students (or you) log onto Chrome by pressing the three little lines and “signing in” that way as opposed to the “google log in” on the big screen
1. Teachers who want to have other gmail accounts linked can “add a user” on the settings page to easily toggle back and forth
2. An icon that you select will be present on the upper left hand corner of the screen once you have more than one user…and you can press it to change users easily.
3. This option should only be done for teachers…not students.
2. Students may have to log into the “google log in” on the big screen next
3. Select “link data”
4. Go back to settings and select “show bookmarks bar” (one time only)
5. If on a student computer, students should log off, but if they don’t they will be logged off automatically when they log off the computer.


Here is the differentiated version with visuals:


Click the three little linesà Sign into Chrome (NOTE THAT THIS IS DIFFERENT THAN YOU USUALLY SIGN IN!!!!!!)











Now put in your username and password (mine is: cmcdonald@linnmar.k12.ia.us and a password that I set up)



IF you get the message below, it means that you have more than one person signed onto your Chrome…I do because I have a personal gmail account and a school account.  If the account listed on the message box is yours, simply push “Create new user”; if it is NOT YOURS, push “link anyway” to log them off and you on.  IF you create a new user, you’ll just create a little icon for you school account.  Contact me for more information about this





It may ask you to sign in again, go ahead and do that.  That previous message will only happen in a small amount of teacher computers, this is where instruction for students would pick up.  Press “link data” to connect user account information onto this machine.  (BTW—student computers wipe out this information each time a new person logs on to the computer…meaning that students that forget to log out after they are completed will not be hijacked by others…but also means that students have to sign into chrome each time they get on)



 


DO NOT IMPORT BOOKMARKS!!! Press the three little lines next!!



































Select “always show bookmarks bar”.  I believe you only have to do this once to have your bookmarks available everytime you log into chrome on a different computer.





































Voila!  You now have your bookmarks and Chrome apps available to you automatically.




See you next Wednesday!


CJ McDonald
Linn-Mar Community School District
Middle School Technology Integration Coach
(319) 892-4856
LM TICs Website: http://ow.ly/AxFhK

Backing up your files

Subject	Computer backup....
From	CJ Mcdonald
To	EX All
Sent	Wednesday, November 19, 2014 12:41 PM

Dear panicked colleagues,

                If you want to back up your files in an efficient way simply drag things into your Synced OneDrive (on Windows explorer).  They will then be backed up online if…oh I don’t know…your computer blows up.  If you’d still like to have some of those files accessible on your desktop, simple right click the file(or folder)à”Send to”àDesktop (create a shortcut).  This gives you a way to access that same file that is in OneDrive without having to go anywhere.  The pictures below can assist you with this.

IF you are one of the handful of people who have not had OneDrive synced, you will probably want to get that done “just incase”, because backing up your files is why I want everyone to sync.  I’m available afterschool today in 407 during my “workshop” to help any OneDrive syncing or file management questions.

I will also be hunting down asking to meet with those who I don’t have marked as synced in the next month or so.  At the end of this email is a list of people who I have down as synced. If you are not on the list because I just forgot to mark you down after meeting with you, just let me know (I’m still learning how to manage dataJ).

(The blue arrow indicates that this icon is a SHORTCUT, not the file itself…so if you delete it the files will not be deleted, only the shortcut)

These are the people who I have marked down as CURRENTLY SYNCED:

(DELETED LIST)

CJ McDonald

Linn-Mar Community School District

Middle School Technology Integration Coach

(319) 892-4856

LM TICs Website: http://ow.ly/AxFhK

Learning Management Systems

Subject	Tuesday TIC Tip
From	CJ Mcdonald
To	EX All; ORALL
Sent	Tuesday, November 18, 2014 6:29 AM








Good morning!




One aspect of technology that I found particularly enticing was the efficiency of it.  I’ve told more than one of you that before I used a digital calendar I couldn’t attend a meeting on time to save my life.  Before I began using a class website and a blog I was always scrambling to provide resources for student who were absent for one reason or another.  Before using surveys to collect student digital work my inbox was crammed full of “shared” files waiting to be organized.  The use of technology gave me the time to be a better teacher…and focus on kids.  Though you probably are not in as dire straits as I was, I’m sure together we’ll stumble upon something that creates efficiency for you; it’ll take you less time and effort than it did me because…well you have a TIC on your side.


Consider taking a look and at least considering one of the following LMS (Learning management systems).  LMS is a system that wraps most of the ideas above into one little package.  A one stop shop.  Killing 5 birds with one stone,  er, you get the idea.  You may want to consider working with your team to experiment and help each other decide which of the following may work for you next semester or next year.  






1. Google Classroom (#googleclassroom, 2 minute VIDEO)
• Extremely Simple.  Teachers can distribute, collect and grade google docs with ease


2. OneNote Classroom (Disclosure—I love this one.  Its too new for nifty YouTube videos.  See me for details)
• Awesome new OneNote program where there are three different sections of a OneNote: 1-- the teacher can distribute materials for all students to see.  2--The students work can immediately be seen by the teacher.  3—A Collaboration area (if the teacher wanted) where all students and the teacher can comment and see each other’s work.


3. Canvas (1 ½ minute VIDEO)
• I have less experience with this, but a few teachers are using this to distribute, collect and grade student work.  They can also set up quizzes and can automatically check them.


4. Moodle (LM has a moodle page… 6 minute VIDEO)
• Good basic structure that distributes and collects student work.  As you can see by the site ther are a few teachers already using it and could be resources for you.


5. Some others that I could help you look into:
• Edmodo
• Blackboard
• Many more…




Workshop sessions:


EX  
Wed 3:-3:30 in 407
Thursday 7:15-7:45


OR
Thursday 3:00-3:30
Friday 7:15-7:45


1. Sycning OneDrive (with file management discussion)
2. Learning Management Systems
 
(yes, I’m on a Calvin and Hobbes kick today)














CJ McDonald
Linn-Mar Community School District
Middle School Technology Integration Coach
(319) 892-4856
LM TICs Website: http://ow.ly/AxFhK

Syncing OneDrive to your Computer...to back up your files!

Subject	Tuesday Tic Tip
From	CJ Mcdonald
To	ORALL; EX All
Sent	Tuesday, November 11, 2014 7:04 AM



Happy Winter….
Please watch THIS 3 minute video about syncing OneDrive….it has benefits I swear!!


Workshops this week:


1. Syncing OneDrive
2. OneNote for Personal Organization
1. HERE is an example of a OneNote




Times/Locations:


EX:
Wed: 3:00-3:30 in 407
Friday: 7:15-7:45 in 407


OR:
Wed: 7:15-7:45 in Computers classroom
Thursday: 3-3:30 in computers classroom




CJ McDonald
Linn-Mar Community School District
Middle School Technology Integration Coach
(319) 892-4856
LM TICs Website: http://ow.ly/AxFhK

Flubaroo self Correcting quiz

Subject	Tuesday Tic Tip
From	CJ Mcdonald
To	ORALL; EX All
Sent	Tuesday, November 04, 2014 5:28 AM



Happy Election Day!  This day always fires me up!  Make sure to go and vote!


On to the Tip:


Looking for my schedule?  Try THIS PAGE on the Tic website.


Data collection is so important to our work.  If you are interested in having students complete surveys that are self-correcting (aka a quiz of some sort), HERE is a PowerPoint I’ve been working on showing the basics.  I will be working on the more complicated one soon on how to make pivot tables, charts, and graphs.




This week’s workshop topic(s):
• Creating forms to collect digital items from your students. (so you don’t have to deal with a ton of shared documents in your online folders)
• Syncing OneDrive (if still needed)


Thursday 7:15-7:45 OR Computers Classroom
Thursday 3:00-3:30 @ EX Data Room






CJ McDonald
Linn-Mar Community School District
Middle School Technology Integration Coach
(319) 892-4856
LM TICs Website: http://ow.ly/AxFhK

OneDrive Syncing Message

Subject	Tuesday Tic Tip
From	CJ Mcdonald
To	ORALL; EX All
Sent	Tuesday, October 28, 2014 6:24 AM



Just wanted to say thanks to all the people that have let me into their classroom to observe, asked me questions to improve their classroom’s efficiency and effectiveness!


I am documenting everybody who has synced their OneDrive to their computer, so if I come around and ask, it should only take a couple minutes (I’ll only take 5 minutes, regardless of if it gets complete).  I’m going to get to everybody eventually, and I’m persistent, so….


****You don’t have to USE OneDrive, I am just making sure you have the capability to use it.  Some students will begin using it, so you should at least have a basic understanding of it.****


This week’s workshop topic(s):
• Creating forms to collect digital items from your students. (so you don’t have to deal with a ton of shared documents in your online folders)
• Syncing OneDrive (if still needed)


Wed. 7:15-7:45 EX Data Room
Thursday 3:00-3:30 in the Computers classroom


CJ McDonald
Linn-Mar Community School District
Middle School Technology Integration Coach
(319) 892-4856
LM TICs Website: http://ow.ly/AxFhK

Polleverywhere.com and OneNote

Subject	Tuesday TIC TIP
From	CJ Mcdonald
To	ORALL; EX All
Sent	Tuesday, October 21, 2014 5:55 AM



Welcome to the Tuesday TIC TIP. 


I will begin workshops before and after school this week.  You are invited to attend either session (and be a little late to the workshop or leave early if you need travel time)


This week: Syncing OneDrive. Everyone needs to have this done to their computer…either by workshop, the training OneNote below, with help from a colleague or me (it takes less than 5 minutes)
• Thursday 3:00-3:30 EX room 409 (data room)
• Friday 7:15-7:45 OR Library (I need to confirm this, if you don’t hear from me, consider this to be the location)




HERE is my OneNote from the Oak Ridge Training yesterday.  I think that there are things on here that EVERYONE would find useful. I am going to keep the surveys active to help gather information, so if you use the OneNote please complete the survey linked on it!


I got some questions about how to put a Poll Everywhere Poll on a PowerPoint.  HERE is a tutorial. (I found out that you can complete it without a cell phone too, that would’ve been nice to know) If you want to know what it is, HERE is their promo




As always, let me know if you need anything.  If you’d like to discuss something lengthy, just ask me to meet with you at a specific time and I’ll make that work or offer an alternative!


Thanks!


CJ McDonald
Linn-Mar Community School District
Middle School Technology Integration Coach
(319) 892-4856
LM TICs Website: http://ow.ly/AxFhK