Soft Technology

Stephanie Filardo: Photo credit Valerie Callan Photography Guest Blog Post by Stephanie Filardo, follow Stephanie's blog here and find her on Twitter here .  Stephanie is currently a teacher in St. Louis, Missouri I remember getting papers back with stickers and stamps as a kid.  While I may not remember the specific assignments and what I learned from them, but I remember how it made me  feel  when I saw a sticker or stamp on them.  While my teachers were just taking stickers from a page and adhering them to all of the student papers, it meant something because they took them time to do it.  They didn't have to do it, they  cared  enough to do it.  It meant something to read "Excellent!" "Great job!" "A+!" and even better when it was the coveted scratch-n-sniff sticker! This idea is brought to you by the wonderful integration of Google Docs and Google Keep.  Enjoy! Today, I'm excited to tell you about DocStickers! If you can give me 90...

Google Drawing Templates: Please do not request access, open the template you want and create a copy. Thanks to everyone who contributed to these set! Eric Curts , Kasey Bell , and Matt Miller . http://bit.ly/GoogleDrawingTemplates

By Guest Blogger Carlos from Grad Gopher (P.S. This is NOT a paid post! I asked Carlos to write this for us because Grad Gopher is going to save you TIME and make sure you get all your DATA. It really is AMAZING.) Our new, game-changing software GradGopher.com was built out of the frustration of teachers and students looking to save their information with no easy solution. GradGopher.com copies your Google Drive (Shared & Owned files), Gmail emails (with attachments), Contacts, and Calendar events to another Google account of your choosing and it only takes a minute to set up! Unlike Google Takeout, GradGopher copies all the files shared with you!  GradGopher saves you a ton of time!  “GradGopher literally saved me about 40-50 hours worth of manual labor. I can't say enough about this. It is really everything you hoped for and more.” - Colin Davitt GradGopher puts all your stuff in folders just like it was in your school account, all your organization is saved!  Grad...

Part 1 of the series "Get your Computer Ready For Summer" explores the fastest and easiest way to upload your files to Google Drive. If you have a whole lot of files, wait for Part 2, which will show how to install Google Drive and sync files from your computer's hard drive to the cloud. If this video helps you, then share it! This video is for educators who need to back up their files so that their computers can be refreshed for the summer. Don't lose your valuable files, back up now to Google Drive! This technique will also let you access your files from any computer or from your phone. Links you'll need: http://drive.google.com http://bit.ly/FileStorageGoogle

This video seeks to answer the #1 question I get about Project Based Learning, and that is, "Am I Doing This Right?!?" The question speaks to the integrity of my favorite people, educators, and their desire to do the best they can by the students they teach. I hope this video helps you know where to focus your energy when you are trying to shift your teaching practices. Special (and HUGE) thanks to my colleague Kristy Edgar for the amazing animations, graphics, and visuals for this video. She made a simple soundtrack come alive and be entertaining.

Until I started researching for this infographic, I didn't even know some of these handy URLs existed. Did you? Do you have one to add? Let me know in the comments! Thanks, Amy Version 4... Download various versions of this file here

Hope you enjoy this list of the top Add-Ons for Educators. I didn't think of it alone! Here are some sources and some more add-ons for you . . . http://goo.gl/0YJ8Og http://goo.gl/Yj8WoM

This week's tip comes from a colleague who wanted a way to automatically label email messages based on certain criterion. This technique will DEFINITELY help you keep your inbox organized as well as draw your attention to important topics. Hope you enjoy it! If you do, please hit the thumbs up button you YouTube or share the video with others via your social networks or email. If you'd like to submit an idea for a tip, please shoot me an email via the contact button on the top right of the blog. Credits, and because I am asked all the time: Screencast software from Techsmith, Camtasia for Mac does both the cool features you see in this video: the magnifying glass and the picture in picture. I love it. Thanks Techsmith!

This year at our back to school assembly, our Interim Superintendent read the poem below. When he shared it with me, I gotta admit, I got a tear in my eye. So true. As you start the new school year, don't forget, whoever it is you teach, you are molding their dreams. &lt;/center&gt;<br /> I'm pretty sure we need this as a bumper sticker . . . 

Learn about a few of my favorite Google Chrome Extensions in this video tutorial for use by education professionals and students. Think of all the time you can save with these great tools!

You may have noticed some pretty significant changes to Google Drive lately, but if you haven't, no doubt you will as you begin the 2014-15 school year. Here's a great overview from Alice Keeler's blog and here's one in video form from me. Hope these help you get started on the right foot!

Themes may not be essential to using Chrome, but they sure are fun! Learn how to get and change your theme then see how to install extremely useful utilities into your Chrome browser. For email subscribers, see the video here . 

If you're just switching over to the Chrome Browser or getting started with Google Apps for Education, this series is for you. Become a Chrome expert in no time starting with the first video in what will soon be a series. Hope you enjoy it!

Tell students what engagement is. Sometimes they don't know what it is or that they're supposed to be engaged. When they know, they can help teachers design engaging work. Engagement means students are . . . attentive persistent and committed Students who find value in their work persist even when it's difficult.

I've been working lately on a New Teacher Academy and it has had me thinking a lot about the very basics of being a good teacher. My daughter, Sylvie, a high school senior this year, also contributed to these ideas. If you'd like to contribute, please add a comment to this entry or open the Google Doc using the link under this chart and comment there. Link to the Google Doc (open to comments)

If you're in education, I'm sure you've seen the posts called something like "If Teachers Planned Inservice." The implication is that inservice is always boring (which it often is) and that if teachers did it, it would be either 1. nonexistent or 2. less boring. As a person who plans inservice as part of my job, I hope that what I have planned for you is 1. not boring and 2. useful to you. In fact, that's my number one and number two hope for every session I provide. My question for you though is this: If you are a teacher, you provide a form of "inservice" every day in your classroom. Do you have the same standards for your teaching as you have for mine? I teach you only a few days a year; you teach your students about 185 days a year. How do you maintain the level of interest and relevancy that you expect from me? I'll grant you that's incredibly difficult, but it is worth pondering. What I want you to know is that I (and many, many others...

Above is an embedded Google Presentation with full view access shared via Google Drive. If you don't see it, try this link . Please feel free to use it with your staff. I'd love to hear from you in the comments if you do.

This is an open letter to teachers everywhere, but especially here in Texas, the home of the Standardized Test. It is republished here by permission of the author, who wishes to remain anonymous. Teachers: I’m on your side, I feel your pain, and I am one of you, but having a child who struggles in school has helped me see an entirely different side of things. Please listen with an open mind. Yesterday evening my fifth grade 11 year old son, let's call him Hank, told me that you said something along the lines of "You'll wish you'd paid attention when you fail the STAAR test and are back in 5th grade again next year!" then looked pointedly at him and two other students. His cheeks reddened as he told me this. He frequently complains about more than one of his teachers being speechless with rage after benchmark or common assessment scores are returned and, in his words, "Everyone fails." He’s also reported more than one teacher refusing to speak to the clas...

You are probably familiar with Remind 101 and Class Parrot, but perhaps you haven't yet tried Cel.ly because you thought you already had your texting needs covered or maybe initially it looked too complicated; however, Cel.ly is in a whole other league from those other popular tools and is well worth the effort. A tool with enterprise level power that is completely free is too good to pass up. A reminder to teachers: Don't take the risk of texting your students directly. It's just not worth it when there's another way to have the same result with none of the risk. Don't put yourself in a position of having a "he said/she said" that could end up in court. ALSO: Group texting is a pain in most apps. Cel.ly solves all of the above. Here are ten things your school (or district or classroom) can do better and cheaper with  Cel.ly . 1. Set up a cell for your entire district for mass notifications, for example, "No school tomorrow due to Hurricane. Check l...