Created for MACUL 13 Spark Session: Paperless with Google and Chrome, 3/21-3/22

Questions/Comments?

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In the College English course I teach, we write a total of 15 essays over the course of one school year. Not one of these essays is printed out, saving much time and money.

DISCLAIMER: When claiming "paperless", I am not saying that I have no paper involved in my classes. There are occasions where physical paper works best. My primary goal isn't to be "paperless", but to utilize technology to help organize my classroom, streamline the grading process, and get students used to the technology.

Just a quick overview of the courses that I teach. Each class uses Google in a variety of ways.

The numbers kept defaulting back to percentages, I apologize for this. Here's the numbers:
College English 12: 1
CP English 11: 1
English 11: 2
Public Speaking: 1
Yearbook: 1

The first step is to have students use their Google accounts to make documents and name them correctly. For the sake of organization, I always require documents to be name "Last Name. Assignment". Then the doc needs to be shared with me, allowing me editing rights.

I prefer to organize the docs into folders based on assignment. Some create folders for each student; however, I have more students than assignments, so I have found it easier to organize by assignment. I do make each folder a new color.

I use the star labeling option to indicate the essays that I have already graded.

Though you can't see it in this picture, each doc is labeled with the last time someone edited it. I use this time stamp to ensure due dates since I typically have assignments due "after hours".

I use the comment function--- CTRL+ALT+M -- to highlight areas and add comments for revision. By using the computer, I find that I can be more specific and detailed than when hand writing comments. It is also helpful to link resources in the comments when needed.

Students can also reply to my comment, ensuring that we have a discussion about the issue.

When done revising the problem, students can "resolve" the comment, making it disappear.

Using the netbooks, peer editing becomes a breeze. No more printing papers, trading with each other, collecting essays etc.

When each students has a device--netbooks in this instance--they "share" their docs with each other. Then they can complete the Writer's Workshop process with each member simultaneously viewing and reading each piece. Students can also make comments on and corrections to the essay during the process, allowing for further questioning and feedback.

Google Docs keeps an extensive revision history that I can access at any time. This allows me to do several things:

1) Check to ensure that the suggestions for improvement I made were taken into consideration. I can see what changes were made during the revision process.

2) Monitor how much work students did and at what times. If I am absent, I can check and see how much work was done when I was gone or I can see who put the most time/energy into their essay.

3) By watching for mass amounts of "copy/paste" text appearing, I can see who plagiarized their essays. I can also see if any other users were working on the document and what contributions they made. This is also very helpful during group projects to see which members did the most work.

This is a close up of the pre-test that my College English class had to take. By using Google Forms to administer the test, all the results are listed in spreadsheet. When I administer, the post-test at the end of the year, the same test can be given, with the results in organizing into the same spreadsheet.

Google Forms allows for a variety of questions:
Multiple Choice/Choose from a list (as pictured)
Short Answer
Paragraph Answer
Matching
Scale Ratings
Grid Choices

You also have the choice of making questions required or directing students to a different page based on their answers.

By running the Flubaroo script, you can automatically grade a test given on Google forms.

Flubaroo can be found in the script gallery. FOr directions on using Flubaroo, see this resource: http://bit.ly/15UMcsJ

You create the answer key and Flubaroo grades multiple choice or short answer questions. The results are recorded in a second sheet. Color coding allows the teacher to analyze the results.

If students put their email addresses into the form (teacher must create a question for it), results can be emailed to the students, including answers, if wanted.

When giving presentations or speeches, I record students to give them a better opportunity to self-reflect on their speaking/listening skills.

After speaking, I upload the videos taken with an iPad/iPhone to a private playlist on YouTube. Students can then take a moment to watch themselves speak and truly see their strengths/weaknesses.

It also helps me as the one grading the speeches. Often it is helpful to go back and review the speeches so my assessing and feedback is accurate.

One of the requirements of Public Speaking is peer and self evaluations of speaking. In order to reduce the paper and organize the feedback, I put the evaluation forms online. In Google Forms, the students just need to access the URL and they can click through the feedback quickly as the speaker is speaking.

The feedback is automatically organized into a spreadsheet, which can easily be shared with students so they can view the feedback from their classmates.

1) Instead of using a paper calendar, our staff uses a Google Spreadsheet to organize the computer lab/iPad checkout.

2) Detention forms and data are logged in Google Docs, making behavior tracking easier.

3) Popular documents are uploaded and shared via Google Docs to make them accessible for staff. This is very useful for docs that are constantly updated.

4) When sharing preps with other teachers, we can use Google Docs to prepare lessons, edit work, etc. It's been very useful when a common planing time isn't available.

5) We've made use of Google Docs to keep minutes from PLCs so that everyone can see the progress being made. Also, absent staff or those in other PLCs can add their information to the docs. Our RTI strategies, pull outs, etc. are also organized on Google Docs. Every staff member can request students during advisory time thanks to a Google Spreadsheet.

An example of our lab checkout sheet.

It can be accessed from home, which is very helpful when planning from home or during absences. It is also easy to track how much traffic each lab has and who uses the labs the most.