Organize Your Drive Folders with Color

Just like with Google Calendar you can associate a color to your Google Drive folders.  This makes it easy to find the folder you are looking for instead of just seeing the bland gray folders.

It is very easy to associate a color to a folder.  Hover over the folder you want to change and click the "Down Arrow" that pops up to the right of the folder name.  Choose "Change color" and choose a color.  You can also add colors to sub folders as well!

Wolfram Alpha: My Work Checker

One of my favorite tools on the web is Wolfram Alpha because it speeds up the double checking of my work in my classroom.  There are so many ways to use it such as asking it to solve, simplify or graph functions.  It gives a very accurate answer and with the Pro account it gives the step by step solutions.  I have found two other ways to access Wolfram Alpha other than just going to their sites and it speeds up the checking of my work.

1)  Set up a Shortcut in the Omnibox.
I have setup my own search short cut in the Omnibox of Chrome so that all I have to do to search Wolfram Alpha is type "w" and the press the space bar.  After that I can input anything thing and Wolfram Alpha will do its best to answer.

2)  Ask Siri.
If you open Siri on your iPhone and ask it to "Solve two x plus one equals five" it will search Wolfram Alpha's database and provide the answer.  This works well with graphing and simplifying functions too.

Freezing Rows and Columns on iPad

I have started taking down homework completion grades on my iPad via the Sheets app and found it extremely beneficial.  You always have access to the information, it is visually appealing if you using conditional formatting and it can auto-sum the weeks totals.  Scrolling back and forth can be a hassle though without seeing the names of the students.  Freezing the columns and rows is a great feature and I just learned you can implement freezing within the Sheets iPad app itself.

To freeze a column or row click the arrow next to the sheets name and choose how many columns or rows you would like to freeze.  Very easy to do and very helpful.

How I Flip My Classroom

From my experience of flipping my classroom there are so many different ways to do it.  I know teachers that use their iPads or screencast their desktop but I really think it is completely teacher preference.  What are you comfortable doing and using?  For me, I found that the most important thing is to get my videos in a format that is accessible on a mobile device and have the students accountable for the assignment.  Here is how I have been flipping my classroom this year.


Step 1:  Creating the Note sheet.

Based on what I have seen from my students and a few conferences I have attended, supplying guided notes to the students make it easier for them to pay attention to the videos and holds them accountable for paying attention.


Step 2:  Recording the Video with Educations

I have found Educreations on the iPad to be my "goto" video creation app.  It's free and the ease of using the app made it usable after five minutes of reading the tutorial.  There are two main problems with Educreations that can be fixed on the teachers part.  The first is that you can not import a Word document into the videos.  However you can import picture files from a Dropbox account.  So what I do is take screen shots of the note sheets (one for each page) and save those picture files to Dropbox to use with Educreations.  The second problem is that students can not view Educreation videos on their mobile devices.  I solved this problem in the next step.


Step 3:  Convert the Video to a YouTube Video

Because Educreation videos are not viewable on mobile devices I use Screencast-O-Matic to capture the videos to post on YouTube.  I know it seems like extra work to do this but I think it is important that my students can view the videos on their phone.  I use an iMac or MacBook Pro to accomplished this because one of the options in the audio settings (SoundFlower) allows for Screencast-O-Matic to grab only the audio from the videos and not the audio from the microphone on my computer.  After the video has been captured, uploading to my YouTube channel is very easy.


Step 4:  Creating the Google Form

I like the students to access my videos from a Google Form.  The benefit of using a Google Form is that you can embed the video and questions for the students to answer after watching the video.  Here is the blog post on how I created my Google Forms for my flipped classroom.


Step 5:  QR Codes for Access

The last step is to create a QR code using goo.gl to the Google Form for the video.  I then place the QR code on the guided notes for the students so they do not have to type in any URLs.  Then print however many guided notes you need.



And that's it.  I know it sounds like a lot for just one lesson but it gets easier the more you flip your class.  There are also so many different ways to create video files.  I have tried using Screencast-O-Matic and Doceri to create a video file, Knomia and other apps but I have found Educreations to be the most user friendly for myself.

I believe the key is to find what works for you and stick with it.  There is no "correct" way to flip your classroom.

Searching Google Drive from Gmail

This is a nice feature that I never realized is part of Gmail.  If you input something into the search bar of Gmail it will search for those keywords in your Google Drive as well.  The search results for Drive are hidden after the 20 email results from the search.  Not an earth shattering feature but can be a helpful time saver.

Three Extensions Running Behind the Scenes

Extensions are a great addition to Chrome allowing you to shorten URLs, take screen shots and even condense text (I love TLDR).  But there are extensions that can run in the background without you even know it.  These extension can make Chrome a better experience for the user.  Here are my top three that I have running all the time.

1)  Attachment Icons for Gmail (Link)
Attachment Icons for Gmail is a very basic idea but very helpful.  What this extension does is that it changes the paperclip icon in Gmail (that stands for attachment) to a picture of what the attachment really is.  For example if an email has a pdf attachment the icon is the not paper clip but the icon for pdf.  I it does not recognize the file it will default back to the paper clip icon.

2)  App Launcher Customizer for Google  (Link)
App Launcher Customizer allows you to customize your Google Apps menu so that only the apps you want appear in the menu.  You can add or remove any apps you need to.

I really like quick access to YouTube and Google+.  With App Launcher I can have those easily accessible from my apps menu.

3)  Momentum  (Link)
Momentum is a simple extension that creates an eye pleasing image when you open a new tab instead of the default "New Tab" screen.

Along with a new image, Momentum gives you the current time and your local weather.

My Flipped Classroom Google Form

One year after flipping my Algebra 1 class I feel I have found the best way for me to have a successful flipped classroom and I wanted to share it.  Below is a sample image of the Google Form I have the students go to each day and below it I will have more detailed info for each part.

1)  Student Email Address:  I always have the students input their student email address so I know who completes the form as well as having the ability to send them their grade on the assignment after I grade it using the add-on Flubaroo.  I found it much easier to have their school domain already filled in for them using the pre-filled option.  (How to create a pre-filled Google Form Blog Post.)

2)  ID Number:  I have the students submit their student ID numbers as a form of double verification.

3)  Period Number:  Because I teach multiple classes of Algebra 1 I need to organize the results by periods.

4)  Embed the Video:  For this school year I have made sure all of my videos are on YouTube so I can embed them into a Google Form.  It is also much more useful for students since they can view YouTube videos on their mobile devices.

5)  Link to the Video:  There are times that the embedded video does not work on their mobile devices so I include the direct link to the video.

6)  Image of the Question:  Google Forms allow you to insert images into a form.  Unfortunately you can not just copy and paste an image.  You have to have the file saved on your computer as an image file to upload to the form.  I usually just screen capture a few problems from worksheets and save those files.  Useful apps for screen captures are Snipping tool, Skitch and PicPick.  (Screenshots Made Easy Blog Post)

7) Multiple Choice Question:  A large majority of the questions I have the students answer after the video are multiple choice questions.  It makes grading and comparing the data easier.

8) Image of a Horizontal Line:  Without inserting and image of a horizontal line it is hard to see what question corresponds to what multiple choice options.  This is not really needed.


The morning after the assignment I grade it using Flubaroo, email the students their grades and use the Summary of responses within forms to guide the lesson for the day.