Is your Mac running out of space? Do you need a quick solution?
When you don’t have time to go through all of your folders and files to cleanup, a good, quick solution is deleting your larger files. The process for doing this in the GIF below, or in the steps below the GIF.
Open Finder.
Go to Finder>Preferences.
Make sure “All My Files” is checked.
Go to “All My Files” in your Finder menu.
The files are now sorted with the largest at the top. Go through these files and identify things you can delete. Drag them to your Trash.
Many educators spend time over the summer working on content for their courses. If you use Schoology, you can create actual Schoology content for your courses before they actually start. Check out this GIF (and the list of steps below it) to see how:
Go to Resources > Personal
Open or Create a Resource Folder (not necessary, but let’s be organized!)
Click on Add Resource and create your content
When your course starts, add the content from your resources!
Every household has a junk drawer. And, for most Google Drive users, they have two: My Drive and Shared with Me. Everything is in there. Today, let’s focus on how to clean up your Shared with Me.
Here are 4 tips about cleaning up your Shared with Me, followed by a GIF displaying them:
If there are files you are 100% sure that don’t want, go ahead and delete them. You’ll still technically have access to them, but you won’t see them in your Shared with Me anymore (so good luck finding them). The original sharer will have no idea that you removed them and it won’t affect them (because you’re not the owner).
You can click Add to Drive to move files from your Shared with Me to your own Drive, where you can then organize it.
You can drag & drop files from the Shared with Me to anywhere in your Drive to organize them.
Once you’ve moved files into your Drive, you can delete them from your Shared with Me and they will stay in the location that you put them.
There are plenty of flash cards sites, apps and ideas out there. And many of them are great. But… it’s nice to not have to add another tool to your classroom, another site to your list of resources, another password for your students to remember and possibly another account for your students to access.
So, if you don’t need a fully-featured flash cards solution, stick with what you’ve got (and know): Google Slides.
Students can work together to create the cards.
You can assign each kid a card to make . . . and 5 minutes later you have a whole deck.
Cards can involve pictures from a Google image search, pictures from students’ Drive or webcams, drawings and videos.
You can project it in class to have a class-wide review.
Students can use it to study from their cell phones and other devices.
If you have a class website, you can embed the Slides on the site.
Students can make a copy of the Slides to make them their own, add information that helps them, delete cards they already know and add cards for terms they struggle with.
*Disclaimer: I’m really not a flash cards, vocabulary kind of guy. Knowing the lingo has some value, but in general… memorization of stuff that fits on a flash card is just that: memorization. Since I know that it’s an important part of a lot of classrooms, I want to share this strategy for doing it, but I hope that you do it along with other types of learning experiences, like Project-Based Learning and other inquiry-based strategies.
Nope. They have nothing to do with cats. Sorry. If you’re here for the cat memes, you’re going to have to look elsewhere.
They are two Google Sheets formulas that are very useful if you’re organizing information in Google Sheets. Have first names in one column and last names in another, but need them combined? Concat has your back. Have a student’s grade number, but need it to be written out (7th grade instead of just 7) for a mail merge? Concat is here to help.
Need to combine more than 2 things? i.e., first, middle & last name? Concatenate can help you out. It’s the same as Concat but it works for more than 2 items.
The & operator can perform the same tasks. It’s all personal preference.
Some tips are listed below the GIF.
Basic format: =CONCAT(first thing, second thing)
=CONCATENATE(first thing, second thing, third thing, fourth thing….)
=first thing & second thing & third thing
The items in the formula can be cell references like here: =CONCAT(A1, B1)
The items in the formula can be regular text, just use quotation marks: =CONCAT(“me”, “ow)”.
When combining text strings, it puts them together with nothing in between them, so if you want a space, you’ll have to add it yourself – use ” ” if needed – the space is held between those quotation marks.
Have a form that you fill out regularly? Create a pre-filled form link that is partially filled in for you.
Sending a form out to a certain group who will all have the same response to a certain question (i.e., grade level)? Create a pre-filled form link to save them a few moments.
This post is about a useful feature that most people don’t notice in Google Docs: Suggesting Mode. This is fantastic for students doing peer revisions or even teachers collaborating on projects. It allows you to show people what you think should be changed, without actually changing it. The choice is ultimately theirs.
I recommend this when students do any peer revisions in class: if you’re suggesting a specific grammatical, punctuation or word change, use Suggested Edits. However, if you’re giving more general feedback or suggesting a change be made, but not identifying what to change to, use a Comment.
Anyhow, here’s how it works: Up in the top right corner you’ll see the word or icon for Editing, Commenting or Viewing. Click on that and switch to Suggesting. Now, act as though you’re actually editing the document (type, backspace, etc.), but your “edits” will show as “suggested edits.” Awesome!
Never gonna go to war, never gonna drop a bomb
Never gonna shoot a gun and hurt you
Switzerland is never gonna say let’s fight
Never gonna tell a lie, Neutrality
These are not lyrics by Rick Astley. They’re by me, and they’re really lame. But. . . .they serve as a pretty good intro to the idea of having students record their own videos/songs of pop hits recreated with content-related lyrics.
If you know me, you know that I love a good “Rick Roll.” You also know that I love the idea of students proving their mastery of content by creating things rather than by filling in bubbles.
This idea mixes students love of 1) being creative and 2) lyrics videos on YouTube. Here’s a video (with even worse lyrics), followed by the steps.
Years ago, as a middle school math teacher, I had a dilemma. My 51 minute math classes had been shortened to 43 minutes. As any teacher knows, this is a big deal. After wrestling with a lot of ideas for how to handle here’s what I landed on:
Each day, during my planning period, I pressed record in a screencasting program called Jing, stepped up to the SmartBoard and went over the day’s homework as if my class was there. (I’m sure I looked like I had lost my marbles to any passerby) I did it quickly, forcing myself to keep it under 5 minutes. Any longer would mean 2 things: my assignment was too long and I was using to much class time to explain content that my students had already done.
The next day, I would play that video while taking attendance, checking to see who did their homework and meeting with any students who had been absent. This allowed me to combine two sets of things that I had previously done–going over the homework and doing the beginning of class teacher stuff–at once. It made up for those 8 lost minutes, and then some. Visit https://huntingtonhelps.com/center/cherry-hill to learn more modern techniques of making the most of your class.
Nowadays, my philosophies about homework and classrooms where all students are doing the same thing at the same time has changed, so I wouldn’t repeat this format. However, I think these recordings would still be valuable in a blended learning setting. When students finish certain assignments, they could view the videos to self-assess and learn more. Learning Management Systems and websites really open up the possibilities on this.
