Build Your PLC by Putting the Internet to Work For You

Recently while teaching an online class on Differentiated Instruction, I found that many of the teachers involved in the class had gotten the fire in them and were excited about finding resources and implementing DI in their classroom.  Rather than let them leave the class with no path to keep them going, I put together this list of resources the help them find what they needed.  

The emphasis I placed on the end of the course was for them to build their Professional Learning Community.  Finding the resources to help students starts with building a Professional Learning Community.  There are tons of resources out there and it can be daunting.  My solution is to put social media to work!  Here are a few places on Social Media to start:

• Facebook
• Google +
• Twitter
• Pinterest 
• Instagram

There are other tools you can use to gather your newly found resources in one place so they are easier to digest.  Some of these tools, I have shared in previous articles, while others are new.  I hope you find them useful:  

• ScoopIt! - This tool lets you choose topics and websites so you can digest all those articles out there on the topics you are interested in.
• Flipboard - Similar to ScoopIt, you can gather twitter feeds, facebook pages, magazine articles and websites into a magazine style resource so you can put all your interests in one place.
• IFTTT - When sharing what you have found, you can use If This Then That (IFTTT) to put recipes together that make your life easier.  For instance, if you post a resource on YouTube, you can have IFTTT automatically let your fellow teachers know on Twitter.  If a new article pops up on twitter with the topic "iPad Tips", you can have an email sent to you.
• Paper.li - turn your twitter feed into a paper that publishes daily, then have an email sent to you so you can read all your favorite resources like a newspaper.

Finally, if you've never used these resources before, here are a few websites dedicated to making the teaching profession better

• Edutopia - The George Lucas Foundation has a vested interest in helping teachers learn and grow to help students.  Visit their site, or create a free account so you can keep up with trends in education.
• Edudemic - This site provides resources for teachers and students with the goal of infusing technology into the classroom.  Check this article out on their site to start http://www.edudemic.com/great-edtech-twitter-chats/

Google Apps for Teachers

Recently, our district decided to make the switch to become a Google Apps for Education (GAFE) school.  We are in the middle of the transition and are slowly adding teachers to our district account, one site at a time.  This transition has made things simpler for me, and the discussion that I have had with several teachers has gotten them in the mode of thinking about how Google could be leveraged to making their lives easier too.

The difficulty I have had is helping them understand just why they should use Google Apps.  The biggest and best answer I can give is that Google allows the following:

• Free Cloud Storage - 15GB for a Free user, 30GB for a GAFE Teacher
• Access to Google Drive
• Real Time collaboration - share docs and collaborate from anywhere at anytime with an Internet Connection
• Google Docs - word processing in the cloud
• Google Forms - for quizzes and tests
• Google Sheets - for collecting and sharing data
• Google Slides - convert your PowerPoints into slides and access them from anywhere.
• ...and the biggest...NO NEED TO CARRY AROUND FLASH DRIVES ANYMORE!

To help our teachers learn how to use these apps, I have created a few tutorial videos that I wanted to share with everyone.  

Google:  An Introduction

Google Docs

Google Forms

Google Slides

Beyond these videos, there are several links that will help new users keep up with Google News:

Google Gooru - http://www.googlegooru.com/
Google Educators - Sand Springs - https://www.facebook.com/groups/GoogleSSPS/
The Official Google Blog - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

Hopefully the videos and the links will help you as you Go Google!

Dropbox and the Paperless Classroom

For teachers that want to go to a paperless classroom, the one drawback is finding a free solution that allows you to distribute work and still collect work without complication.  Many teachers have a dropbox account and have created public folders so that students can submit work.  The problem with this is that students can see everyone else's work, which leads to problems with academic integrity, cheating, and plagiarism.

Today, I ran across a great solution that will help teachers using Dropbox.  This tool is called Jotform.  If you go to Jotform.com/dropbox, you can create a form that allows students to submit assignments to your dropbox account.  Its pretty simple as long as you already have an existing dropbox account and you use the link above.

  

To get started, you'll first need to go to http://jotform.com to create an account.  Then, follow the instructions below to create your dropbox form.

1. Go to http://jotform.com/dropbox.  
2. Click the "Create a Dropbox Form" button.
3. You'll be asked to login to your Dropbox account and link it to Jotform.
4. After linking the two accounts, you'll get a link and an Embed code you can use to post your form online. 
5. A form template has already been created, so all you need to do is click Next when prompted.  
6. After the process is complete, close the popup window and go to My Forms.  You can see and edit your form at any time.

After you create your form, you can always go back to Jotform and find your Embed Code and URL for sharing.  You can also edit this form to include collect other information such as Class Period, Grade, etc....  If you click the Integration button, you can also integrate other services besides dropbox.  

Once your Dropbox account and your Jotform account are linked, you will see a new folder in your Dropbox account called "JotForm to Dropbox".  You'll want to test our your new form for the first time after creating it.  

This is a great alternative if you are not a Google Apps for Education school and you are a religious dropbox user.  My suggestion would be to create a separate dropbox account apart from your personal one that is used only for your classroom.  Then start collecting student work!