I Bet You Didn't Know I Use Google

I have a secret...I use Google.  A lot.  It feels like all I have posted about lately is, "Google this," and "Google That."  Well there is a reason for that.  Not only because it is part of my assignment for my masters course, but it truly does have some more amazing features that I need to tell you about!

I'm so glad you think so, Ron!  We have a lot to cover today.  Fasten your seat belts, friends. Here goes...

Today we are going to cover the basics on:

• Google Classroom
• Google Calendar
• Google Keep
• Google Photos

                              ...and how you can use them in your MUSIC classroom.

Google Classroom

Here is a quick list of the features that stuck out to me when looking into Google Classroom.  

Want to see what all of this actually looks like?  Watch this:

Now check this out!  These are very quick tutorials (all in one place) for you to see the basics of Google Classroom.  It shows you how to:

• Create a class
• Add students
• Create an assignment
• Ask a question
• Post an announcement
• Grade student work
• Share student resources
• Reuse posts
• Schedule posts
• Add co-teachers

I created a Google Classroom for the beginning of the school year with my older students.  I am on a mission to rid my older students of being self conscious while singing.  I have created some beginning of the year activities and placed them in Google Classroom.

Here Is How I Would Start To Use Google Classroom In My Music Classroom

1. The first thing I posted was a "Get to Know Mrs. Bowden" presentation.  This is there for them to look at if they would like.  I also have it in the ABOUT section, for easy access for parents to look at if they would like.

2.  Then, I posted a question, "What would the perfect music classroom learning environment look like to you?  This could include topics that you would like to learn more about, personality of your teacher and classmates, activities, routines, expectations, instruments, units, seating arrangements, reward days. and so much more!

Reply to 1 other classmate's response in a positive, constructive way.  If you disagree, explain why you disagree."

3.  I asked them to rate themselves with a poll.  This is the view where you and the students can quickly see how everyone else rated themselves in the class.

4.  Next, I will have them watch some videos on teamwork and answer the following questions.

• How can the support of your classmates (your team) boost your confidence while singing alone?
• How can you support a classmate that did not rate themselves with the highest confidence level?
• What can you do for yourself to boost your own confidence?

5.  Throughout this process of team-building and boosting levels of singing confidence, we will do some activities to aide all of this.  Students will begin this process by answering interview questions.  Then, throughout the year, they will monitor their progress by taking a survey and view the results of each survey.  We talk about the statements they wrote on their survey and place them in categories.  Since students will frequently be accessing these documents, I created a folder for the class which holds these files for them to access at any time.  If you would like to view the documents I have created, the links are below.

• Beginning of year/End of year interview questions
• Singing Confidence Survey
• Survey responses

I hope this gives you some ideas on how you can start your own Google Classroom in your music room.  

Google Calendar

Ways that you can use Google Calendar in your music classroom: 

      ·        post class events

·         post rehearsals

·         post performances

·         create new calendars for different performing groups to organize them

·         share the calendars with participants and parents

·         add attachments to calendar events

·         embed into blog if you use one for your classroom

Here is how to create and share your Google Calendar.  If I had a choir schedule and a strings schedule with different groups of students, I could create a calendar for each of them so that I can share the individual calendars with the participants and parents.  However, I can see both schedules in my calendar at once if I choose.  Color coding the calendars makes it easier to visually organize. 

Watch this to add an attachment to an event in my Google Calendar.  

You can also explore the Google Labs.  My favorite is the countdown timer to my next appointment.

Google Keep

Google Keep is an app that lets you take notes in a variety of ways. 

Here is a quick looksie:

 Some features that grabbed my attention of how to use Google Keep are:

• create shared sticky notes with students
• use for task management
• note-taking
• screenshot something and paste into Keep- it can turn into a checklist (ex. recipe)
• search for items in your Keep in the search bar 
• it can read words from a picture/screenshot
• to-do list transfers to all devices. Ex. someone caught you in the hall and you need to follow up some how-add the item on the go!
• edit at the same time
• transfer notes to a Google Doc
• transfer multiple notes into 1 Google Doc
• location reminder gives you a reminder when you have reached the location destination.  Ex. remind yourself to put the camera battery charger in your teacher bag when you get home.
• color code notes based on activity/topic
• give audio feedback to students by sending to their Keep
• can label notes with search terms
• create drawings and send to Google Docs if needed

So many features!  I think the one that will change my life the most is the location reminder.  I'm always needing to bring stuff to school from home, but often forget.  I remember while at school, but when I am at home it all goes out the window.  If only you could be a fly on the wall!

I thought this PODCAST was really useful in getting ideas for use in the classroom.

If you need a visual on how this works, check out this video as well.

This was a really cool idea for ways to leave comments.  I often find that when I leave feedback for students, it tends to be the same a lot of the time.  So, I write the same feedback over and over.  This is a creative way of keeping your comments in one place, finding them, then copying and pasting into your comment feature of the document you are grading.  You can even use them year after year if you use the same projects.

Google Photos

The last thing we are going to touch on today is Google Photos.  I think I would use this the most for sharing what is going on in the music room with the community/parents.  One of the most amazing things about technology, is that it can bring parents into your classroom, without actually being in your classroom.  Do parents think all you do is sing all day?  

       "Oh my goodness!  You teach guitar?"  

                                "Wow, you can describe what a sound wave is?"

 "Cool!  You know what Irish folk music sounds like?  That is where your great grandparents were from!"

...Things you may hear as an elementary music teacher.

How can you get over it?  By changing their schema, of course!  Give them new experiences to pull from.  How?  I thought you'd never ask!  This is how I would do it.

Step 1: Set your photos to sync to Google Photos from your school devices.  I usually have my iPad handy and will take short video clips and pictures of students in action.

Step 2: Decide when  to share these photos with the parents.  At the end of a month-long unit?  After a "teachable moment?"  A fun activity they could do at home with family?  A performance?  Rehearsals of a performance as a promo?  The ideas are endless!

Step 3:  Create an album and share with the community/parents through the avenue that is best for community.  Please be aware of your district's policies on media releases.

I warned you it was going to be a wild ride today!  We covered a lot of goodies!  I hope that you found some of this useful.  I could have made a different post on each one of these Google features, but this is a good overview for you to get acquainted with them, and then dig in deeper if you choose.  Happy Googling!

Don't be flippant about Flippity, because it's flipping amazing.

Sooooo...how was your test DRIVE last week? I hope you like Google Drive as much as I do, and that you navigated through just fine...unlike my friend Sammy from one of my favorite movies of all time!  

Let's talk about another tool that will make you "flip."  You'll see what I did there in just a moment.  This site uses Google Spreadsheet to make your life easier.  Now maybe I'm over excited about this because I live and breath in Microsoft Excel, which is a spreadsheet.  I love codes and numbers- who doesn't?!  Honestly, I haven't done much in Google Spreadsheet, because I didn't know how much it was like Excel.  I feel like I am betraying a life-long friend.  However,  I have sat down with Excel and we have had a talk about how I can be friends with more than one spreadsheet software.  Excel took it kind of hard, but we are all going out to dinner next week to break the ice...

Anyhow...enough of my personal drama!  On to...(drum roll please)...

                         ****FLIPPITY****

This tool can do all kinds of time-saving, organizational things to make your teacher life easier.  If you're not a formula kind of gal, like me, then this is the site for you! 

How was that for a sales pitch?

The whacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man wasn't enough?  Hmmm...shall I substantiate with some real-life scenarios to get your blood flowing?  If so, read on!  If this guy is doing it for you, click here!

Flippity is a site that can create games, flashcards, seating charts, randomize groups of all sizes, and random name picker to name a few.  It can create games like a quiz show, crossword puzzles, hang man, or bingo.  All you need to do is enter information into a template that is already made for you, click your mouse a few times, and voila!  Your students think you're a genius-again!  Take a look at this quick video to see what I am talking about:

I created some treble clef flashcards using this.  Take a look here  to access them-and feel free to use!  I did get a little frustrated on how to add images and did some searching.  So, I'll save you some time and just tell you here:  search for the image, right click on the image, copy image address, paste the address into your template.  This is how I did it, and I hope it works for you.  I'm a visuals type of gal, and I needed some flashcards that I could use yesterday in my classroom.  This worked like a charm.

One more piece of Flippity that I don't know how I've lived without is the Random Name Picker.  It has a fun spin wheel to choose individual students, but the part I like the most is that it will randomly choose groups for you as well-of any size!  

Yes, for realsies!

I love drawing sticks to randomly choose students, but when I need some quick, small groups, this has me covered!  There is one draw back though.  If you have a large amount of classes, like me, you will have to make several lists.  BUT how easy is it to copy and paste a list that has already been typed for you-most likely by your amazing secretaries?  

CTRL+C, CTRL+V, CTRL+C, CTRL+V, CTRL+C, CTRL+V, CTRL+C, CTRL+V, CTRL+C, CTRL+V!

Want some other organizational tools?  

A couple that I love are Screencast-O-Matic and SignUp Genius.  

I LOVE screencast-o-matic!  I never know if the sub I get is going to be musical.  9 times out of 10, they are not.  Therefore, when I write lesson plans, I dictate everything the sub needs to say.  I explain every music detail as if this person has no knowledge of music whatsoever.  As you can imagine, this takes a long time.  Since I discovered screencast-o-matic, I have used it several times.  I will record myself explaining concepts, playing instruments, etc.  This saves hours of writing plans.  Here is an example of something I did for a sub.

How many of you elementary music teachers do choir?  Almost all of you!  How many of your students absolutely love choir?  Hopefully, all of yours!  How many of your need to communicate to your choir parents on an on-going basis?  All of you!  SignUp Genius has been really helpful to me.  In my school, my principal does not allow the specialists to send bulk communication home.  Everything that is sent home needs to be through the classroom teachers.  His reasoning is that he does not want to overwhelm the parents-I get it. My oldest daughter isn't even finished with her first year of preschool and I'm overwhelmed at the monthly newsletter/calendar that she gets folks.  In order for students to sign up for choir, I post a link in their newsletter communications.  Then, when I need to send communication home to my choir students only, parents know that it is specific to them and don't overlook it.  It's pretty user friendly, but it does have ads.  I've never seen anything inappropriate, but it is something to be aware of when using with the community.   

If you'd like to see other time saving tools, visit my Adobe Spark page here:

Remember when I talked to you about Adobe Spark?  I thought you did.  Look how amazing this non-professional made this look professional!  Do you have other time-saving tools that you can't live without?  Comment below and give us music teachers some more ideas!

Going...global.

Are you all ready to go POSTAL?  AAAHHH!!

...hold the phone...

              ......Freudian slip......

                                      .....this is embarrassing......

                                                                 .....one second......

I am clearly a little excited about my post today.  Allow me to try this again...A-a-a-hem!

Are you all ready to go global??  

I am proposing a challenge to all of you today.  It may take some of you out of your comfort zone.  That's ok.  I am calling it the "Punxsutawney Phil Challenge."  It's time to come out of your little hole that you are so comfortable in.  If you see your shadow, don't be like these professional scaredy cats.

Embrace your shadow, and what you have to offer.  But you also need crawl out and see what the world has to offer!  Let's all take a step back from your own classroom, team, school, district, etc. and see what other professionals are doing out there.  After all, didn't we enter this biz to better the world by bettering our students?  We can't grow successful students if we are scared of our own shadow.

How do you do this, you ask?  I'll do my best to explain.

We all have professional learning communities.  Let's maximize the potential of this concept.  "They" call it a

Personal

Learning

Network.

Think of your PLC, on a grandiose scale, and of course combined with the inter-webs.  Oh where, oh where would we be without the inter-webs?  We'd be stuck in our Punxsatawney hole- that's where we'd be!  So, what exactly is this glorious PLN that I speak of?  Take a gander at this video. My very own teacher created it, I love how it is clear and easy to follow for the novice.  She may or may not be reading this right now- I'm hoping for brownie points.  uh-wink!  It tells of all the different ways we can connect to other professionals using different avenues online.

Need an idea of how to teach rhythm vs. steady beat?  Want to know how other teachers are teaching recorder?  How do other teachers handle students that do not show up to performances when you can not require it in your district?  How do others get parents involved in creating sets for your elementary performances?  A parent called again about how you did not give their child the lead in the play.  How do you deal with it?  Need a good unit or lesson on the instrument families? So many questions!  Well guess what-there are so many answers!  You can connect with others and communicate with others using some of these avenues:

• blogs
• facebook
• twitter
• nings
• social bookmarking (which I'll talk more about later in this post)
• webinars

Now, how do you connect with others once you have chosen your avenue of choice?  Start with this list of PLN resources.  Then, narrow it down from there.  Once you get started in one of them, it's almost like a domino effect.  You will find more and more groups/people to connect with and before you know it, Bob's your uncle and your new best friend lives in Thailand.   

If you're a music teacher like me here are a few of my go-to places to get you started:

Blogs:

• http://mrskingrocks.blogspot.com/
• http://www.mrsmiraclesmusicroom.com/p/about-me_10.html
• http://www.musicalaabbott.com/
• http://www.soundscapemusic.net/blog
• https://techinmusiced.wordpress.com

Facebook:

• Feierabend Association for Music Education

Social Bookmarking

Everything is so social these days, right?  There is a reason for it.  In order for our students to be successful, they need to be comfortable in social settings.  Everything they do is social. We need to train ourselves and be comfortable in this "social" world, because that is all they know.  We don't want to hold them back

 *** Shout out to all the helicopter moms out there: if you complain to the principal that your child did not get a band-aid for a scrape that could barely be seen and was not even bleeding, you are not setting your child up for success.  However, I am doing all that I can with my social bookmarking skillz to further your child in music class.  Yes, that was meant to be spelled with a "z" for emphasis.  

I am so glad that you are questioning what social bookmarking is.  I had not heard of it until the class I am currently taking.  So, get this:  social bookmarking is basically an amped up bookmarks list- like the one you keep on your toolbar.  You know, the one that holds only a few of your favorites.  So you click on your drop down menu to show the other bookmarks, but you have to scroll down for days to find the exact one you need. Then, you forget what the site was called, so you scroll really slowly in order to find it. Or heaven forbid you go in to work tomorrow morning; find that your cute desktop background is that ugly, plain, blue color instead of your adorable little girls; go to find that video you saved in your favorites and...

You see that your lifetime collection of bookmarks is gone, because IT came and reimaged your computer over night.  Did they notify you?

No! They did not!  But I digress...

Social bookmarking allows you to keep your bookmarks out in internet space, but with so much more organization and connections than before!  Let's be honest here folks.  We are always searching and learning as educators-we can't help it.  We are always coming across 'life-changing' sites on the internet.  Sometimes, or most of the time, I don't have time to really dig in to looking at what all the site has to offer.  In the past, I would bookmark, so I could come back to it later.  In reality, did that happen?   I'm sure you already know the answer.  Let's reset the stage so we can be successful ourselves as teachers.  Close your eyes and imagine this:

.

.

.

.

.

Ok, sorry.  Open your eyes so you can read what I am writing and imagine this:

You are preparing a guitar unit with your 5th graders and you just aren't happy with how it has developed in the past.  You are starting to build up an amazing network with your PLN to go to, but you also have some of your own resources to grab from.  As you came across these life-changing sites, you tagged them with some key terms for quick access later.  You go to your social bookmarking site and find your key term "guitar."  Voila!  

You have some amazing resources at your fingertips that you had forgotten about, because you were too busy rocking at life to create a guitar unit when you came across them the first time.  I like these videos that Common Craft creates.  Watch this to intro yourself to social bookmarking.

Let's talk about...

Let's be clear.  It is not Dingo with an n.  When I saw someone type Dingo in one of my class posts, it made me think of this and I got a good laugh.  Oh Elaine!

Isn't this concept of tagging amazing?!  I wish there was a way to do this with lessons that I find and like in my good ol' fashion books and magazines that I get.  And if there is, please share with me!  Anyhow,  as you come across sites, tag them with all of the things you know you'll search for in the future.  Diigo does so much more than just tagging.  Check this out:

I love the bookmarking tool and that you can tag sites.  Often times I will find a great site, but do not have time to fully explore it.  If you are like me, and have a life outside of work, you will use the "read it later" tool a lot. You can use the sticky note to give yourself reminders on how you would use the website later.  If I do not write things down, I will forget them immediately.  When I come across an amazing resource, if I do not write down how I would use it and when I would use it, and place it in the right place in lesson plans, I will forget it.  With the sticky note tool, I can quickly write the idea down on the sticky note and will have it for when I need it later.  I like that the highlighter portion can help me organize certain topics within a website.  I can also add notes to a certain highlighted portion to remind myself of certain things.  Fun fact: the highlighted portions are added to your Diigo home page.  This is nice to see all of your highlighted portions condensed in one place.  They must have had the teacher in mind!

One thing that I worried about when finding Diigo is that I would have 2 sets of bookmarks until I entered them all in my Diigo page from my personal computer.  Check this out:  https://www.diigo.com/tools/import_all. 

Twitter?  Yes, Twitter!

Full disclosure: I did not grow up in the twitter world, and I could have cared less about what a hashtag was.  As far as I was concerneed, it was a sharp in my sheet music.  UNTIL I had to create an account for a class I was taking a while back.  So, yes, it forced me to be hip and cool.  I know...the torture of being the bomb-diggity.  I'm sure that phrase is still used amongst the youth.  If you are as clueless as I once was, try this site out.  It will get you up to speed.  How can you use Twitter as an educator?  So glad you asked!  Here are just a few ways that I use it:  

• following hashtags that pertain to topics I am in to
• Ex:  #musiced, #elemmusiced, #teacherwellness, #proudteacher
• posting happenings within my classroom. (I like to be transparent with parents)
• Ex: drumming videos, music games that we are playing for understanding
• performance promos
• connecting with fellow music educators to see all of their postings
• connecting with professional organizations
• participating in chats

If you are anything like me, I forget all the possible hashtags that I like to follow.  So, I subscribed to twitterfall.  You can add everything you like to follow in one place, and it will continually update you on just what you are looking for, rather than searching for it every time.  Chats are something that you can participate in, in real time.  Find a schedule here of some that may interest you.  One idea that came to me, but I have not presented it to my principal is starting a "movement" at our school using Twitter.  I think it would get the community more involved in following the teachers's and school's twitter feed.  Our school is big on promoting kindness.  Shouldn't we all?  We could beef up what happens outside of the school day with families by creating a special hashtag or handle that the families could tweet to.  For instance:  #kindnessIScontagiousatCHE or @CHEkindness.  Families can post pictures, videos, or ideas to either of these and get the ball rolling.  I'll keep you updated on the outcome.

When we started our chat today, I Punxsatawney-challenged you.  Do you accept?  

    OR