Google Slides has some really amazing collaboration features that take presentations to a whole new level!  But, it seems the grapics side has been a little slower in adding interesting themes. That changed for me this week thanks to Kasey Bell's posting on the Google in Education Diigo group.  She introduced us to Slidescarnival.com, a website of templates.  This site provides a variety of  templates for graphically telling your informational story.  Templates range from simple drawings with sleek and clean layouts to detailed photograph layouts.  Each template contains a whole range of slides for sharing data, images, text and other options 

To demonstrate some of the templates I created a slide stack of options.  I pulled single slides from several different templates to create my story.  Move to slide 6 for some simple instructions about using the templates from the site.  

Visit slide 7 for my instructions on pulling single slides from multiple presentations - a way to create a hybrid slide stack, like the one below.

One more thing...make sure you include the credit slides for any template you use.  There are hardworking artists creating these and we want to give them credit!

~Beth Swantz, Technology Consultant

This year at Grant Wood we are partnering with the Alvo Institute to run a blended learning pilot with a number of schools in our area. It is an exciting opportunity and a great way to personalize learning for students. We hope that it will have a big impact in the way students learn in the classroom.

One of the initial challenges is to decide how you want to implement a blended learning classroom. It's a challenge because there is more than one way to do this, and finding the model that will work best for both the teacher and the students can take some time to work out.

The infographic in this post has six of the more common types of blended learning models that are currently being implemented in classrooms today:

1. Face to Face Driver
2. Rotation
3. Flex
4. Online Lab
5. Self Blend
6. Online Driver

However, you can go deeper still if you want to. Heather Staker and Michael B. Horn take the rotation model and split that up further to show different ways that you can implement a rotational model:

1. Station Rotation Model
2. Lab Rotation Model
3. Flipped Classroom Model
4. Individual Rotation Model

Is it a change from how things are done in a traditional classroom? Absolutely, and while it may not be for everyone, the drive towards including blended learning as part of a modern classroom is quickly gathering pace, especially as we look to differentiate and personalize learning for students to help them reach their full potential. So, take a look at the infographic below and see what you think.

I stumbled upon the SuperQuiz Google Add-On this summer when I was exploring the new Google updates.  SuperQuiz is a teacher's assistant self-grader, which instantly grades assessments and generates personalized feedback for each student. When you run the SuperQuiz Add-On in the Response Sheet for a Google Form, it generates multiple tabs, each with a different way to look at the data.  The sheer amount of tabs seems a bit overwhelming at first, but after you explore it, you are sure to find the break down of tabs helpful in deciphering class results.  Two of my favorite tabs include the Class Results tab, which would be very helpful in guiding PLC conversations, and the Incorrect Students tab, which aids in differentiating your students.

As a teacher, there are only two tabs that you need to do anything with, Auto Feedback Configuration and Document and Email Configuration.  Let's break down these two tabs...

The SuperQuiz Add-On was created by Oli Trussell, a secondary math teacher in the UK.  He appears to be continually evolving and growing the Add-On.  Recently, there have been more tabs that you can add-in to the mix, including Compare Submissions, which allows you at a glance to compare retake scores, and Charts, which shows you a visual comparison of answers students selected.  

He has also recently added some paid features, which create visual charts help further break down different questions and student responses.  He considers this a "social experiment" as he did not want to charge for the service, but changed his mind after he realized the amount of time and energy he has put into the project.  The nice thing is that he allows you to choose what you'd like to pay ($2, 5, or 10) to unlock premium features.

Regardless of whether you unlock the premium features, the SuperQuiz basics rescues teachers from hours of grading and sorting student responses. 

~Amber Bridge, Technology Consultant

This past week at GWAEA we had the awesome privilege of hosting Jeff Utecht for a series of workshops he facilitated on leading and coaching in a digital age.  This was my third time seeing Jeff present and he never ceases to amaze me with a new learning opportunity.  This time it was the hashtag #comments4kids.

I'll be honest, I had heard of the hashtag #comments4kids before, but had never done much with it.  I put it on that shelf - you know the one - the one called "things to do when I have time".  On that day I finally made time and the experience was wonderful.  #Comments4kids is hashtag that teachers post student work to for feedback from and authentic audience.  The work that is posted there is all digital and varies greatly. One can find anything from fourth grade blog posts on sharks to senior AP chemistry blogs.  The potential for developing and nurturing an authentic audience is #amazing! Teachers can comment on work by students other than their own, or better yet, match their students up with other students to give peer-to-peer feedback. 

Segueing back from that little bird walk, I read through a few tweets during Jeff's workshop that were #comments4kids posts and found a great little book review blog post by a student at College Community School district in Cedar Rapids.  The book was called Bad Magic by Pseudonymous Bosh, and the book report reminded me of a few other books that I had encountered in the past.  Well, this was the opportunity I was waiting for, the chance to go literary geek on a post!  Ok, in all seriousness I wanted to model the making of thematic connections between two texts.  This skill is incredibly important from a literacy perspective because it helps aid in student comprehension by activating and developing student schema (not making this up, you can read about it here under text-to-text connections).  So I responded to the student, thoughtfully, and told her that her post reminded me of both the novel Holes by Louis Sacher and Lord of the Flies by William Golding based upon the plot points that she described, but more importantly because of what she thought the theme of Bad Magic to be.  I also asked her what other books she had read that had a similar theme.

Later that evening I received a very enthusiastic "Thank You"  tweet from the media specialist at her school saying that he couldn't wait for her to read the comment.  Ensue happy feelings for the rest of the night!