Education Technology

Students enjoy opportunities in the classroom that allow them to be creative and explore different ways to learning.  The students in Ms. Linders' ESL class are no stranger to this.   They were given the chance to express themselves and create videos that describe who they are, what they love and their experience as ESL students here at Guilderland. Students worked really hard from inception to deployment.  As they worked on this project, students learned the necessary English Language skills (listening, reading, writing, speaking) that enabled them to create such great videos.  Being that Guilderland is a GAfE (Google Apps for Education)School District, students took advantage of all the Google Apps available to them.  They used their Gmail and an app called WeVideo that works with their Google Drive to create the videos you will see here.  Check them out below and leave an encouraging comment for our ESL students!  KUDOS to Mrs. Linders and ALL her E...

What do you and your students hear less if you are actively using Google Apps?

Are you as annoyed as I am with having to remember passwords and user names for all of your online activity?  I want to bet your answer is YES!  I am using PasswordBox, a new application that helps me store all my passwords securely so when I have to log in again, all the information is pre-filled for me by PasswordBox.  There is also a Chrome extension if you use Chrome as your browser. The download is free and the free account lets you store up to 25 passwords- I am trying to use those 25 free slots for those passwords I don't use that frequently- This is what the site says about pricing: " PasswordBox is similar to Dropbox. Users can store up to 25 passwords and sync across all devices for free before being prompted to upgrade to a premium account. A premium account has unlimited password storage for $11.99 per year, billed annually. You can earn a free lifetime subscription with unlimited password storage by referring friends to PasswordBox. Once five referrals have b...

Have you ever wondered how to organize your student digital content in Google Drive?  Are you tired of having students email you attachments, only to find that your inbox is cluttered with student mail? have you found yourself fishing for a student's assignment in a pile of emails? well...those days are gone! With Google Drive and its sharing capabilities you will keep your inbox clean and still hold on to your sanity. In this video tutorial, you will learn how to create a folder in your Google Drive that will host your student work and that will automatically update every time your students share an assignment with you.  Your students will not need to email you every time they want to turn in an assignment. Nor will they have to attach files to their emails. Watch the tutorial and learn how to organize and manage Google Drive, you will become more efficient and waste less time.

Ever wonder how to get all of your documents accessible to you anywhere, anytime? with Google Drive you can. You don't have to learn another password or another website! Simply log in to your gmail account and click on the word "Drive" on the top black bar of your page. This will take you to your "Drive" but....what is Google "Drive" you may ask.  Google Drive is a virtual space only assigned to you, accessible only to you any time any where from any device (desktop computers, Smart phones and tablets) It's like a computer's hard drive where you normally save all your documents. You can upload existing documents to your Google Drive or create new ones. You can "share" documents with anyone in the district rather than emailing and remembering to "attach" the document.  If you are a teacher, you can share assignments or documents with your students and they can share theirs with you. The students can also create presenta...

So, I have received a lot of emails requesting two things: 1. How to make sure our blogs do not have the navigation bar on the top that reads "search blogs and next blog or previous blog"?  If a student clicks "next blog" it is taken to a random blog outside our school domain. and... 2. How do I retract an email after I sent it?  If I changed my mind after I send my email or maybe I sent it by mistake, how do I retract it? I decided to post the answers to these questions below.  I think they will be helpful for all of us! 1. How to remove the navigation bar on Blogger blogs: First, log in to your Blogger.  You can do this by logging in through the district's website and clicking on the Google Apps icon on the right, typing your username and password and then clicking on the "blogger" icon on the left.  You can also log in to your gmail through Google on any browser; you will be taken to your email.  Click on "more" at the top and choose ...

Often times the art of writing poetry does not come easily for a sixth grader.  Writing poems may not be the "coolest" thing to do for some but with the help of "Voki" students were immediately engaged and eager to write their poems knowing that they could publish their work in an unconventional manner.   Voki offered a way to make their poems come to life by having the students create a custom character that recites their writing piece. Mrs. Wlazlo taught her writing lesson as usual and decided she needed a tangible outcome product for her poetry lesson.  It was then, that she though integrating technology to this lesson would help her with that product. Not only did the students have fun creating their characters but they also practiced, without even noticing, their writing skills and their fluency.  Students wrote their poems and then typed them onto the text to speech feature of Voki.  Their characters then read their poems for them. ...