Getting Started with Gaggle

Gaggle is email, social network, discussion board, digital storage, and more all rolled into one. It's also incredibly safe for students to use. Here's all the information you need to get started on Gaggle today.

1. Gaggle has so many capabilities, don't worry about using them all. As you use Gaggle, decide what to use and what just doesn't work for your classroom needs.

2. When you log in, you will see your personal dashboard and navigation tabs at the left. This dashboard is customizable.

3. To start off with, Gaggle can be used for email. Students can email you, you can email students, and students can email each other. Everything in Gaggle is immediately run through a filter before getting sent out, so if there is something non-kosher that is written it will be flagged and not sent.

The mail tab can be accessed on the left or on the top.

4. Gaggle also has ways of organizing and sharing things with your students. Your "My Classes" tab has your classes. (If you are in OCS, your classes have been downloaded automatically from NCWise. If you are not, you will have to create student accounts and create your classes.) Just click on the class you want to work with and there are a few options available.

You can share information on the class wall, share photos from field trips, and upload documents used in class for students to access from home. You can create assignments and have students submit the assignment through Gaggle. You can also create class discussion boards for discussions on any topic, like their thoughts on the book read in class or their favorite historical figure.

5. Gaggle is also known for its applications. Apps include blogs, a digital locker, Gaggle Tube, and social networking.

Gaggle Tube: Filtered You Tube you can access at school! You are able to search for videos. If it is an inappropriate video, the video will be highlighted pink. Anything else is available to view. You can also save the video to "My Videos" to access later. You will have to play the video through Gaggle. There is not a way to download and save the video. But hey, at least you know nothing inappropriate is going to pop up!

You can access "My Videos" on the left hand side of the browsing screen. You can also search the School Library to see what other teachers are showing. This is great for someone who found a video they want to share with their grade level team. Each team member could just look under that teacher's folder and find the video to share.

Digital Locker:
You can upload and store files here. You can access these files from anywhere on any computer. So long Student Share! Have students save their work on the student share, but then upload it to their digital locker. They can work on it from anywhere, including home. They can also then submit assignments through Gaggle. And teachers can access their students digital lockers by finding the student in the Student Admin section.

You also can keep your files to yourself or enable sharing. Just click on the blue link under the Sharing column. You can choose to email and invite others to view your document. A good idea if you want to share something with your team or committee. You can also choose People with Access  tab and give others access to either view or edit. 

This is an option for students too, so they can share documents with classmates in a group and edit the document together. 

Social Networking: Other capabilities of Gaggle are the Social Wall and Chat options. If you click on Social Wall you can make your own profile and even add friends. You can then chat with those friends using the chat feature at the bottom right of your screen. This is a fun way to add a personal touch and get to know your students and other staff. Students can feel like they have social networking options, but still communicate in a safe space. Just like everything in Gaggle, even the conversations in the Chat feature go through the filter before they are delivered. Great way for students to communicate safely with no room for bullying!

This is a great way to get started with Gaggle. There are so many ways to use this tool in your classroom. If you have more questions, check out the Training Videos also available in the Applications tab.

Top 10 School In Sites Website Tips

In no particular order...

1. Page Setup- Make sure you have the status box checked for all pages you wish to have active.

2. Rename pages to fit with their use.

3. Change your start page (the page that first appears when someone chooses your name from the staff list).

4. Add pictures to your pages.

5. Add files, like newsletters, homework, or permission slips so parents can access a digital copy. Many different file types can be added here.

6. Put links in your text, such as your Bio page or Custom Page.

7. Put Links on your Links Page.

8. Keep your calendar updated on class events and field trips. 

9.  Upload your classroom presentations for viewing at home or for students to access through another computer. 

10. Visit the Help section at the bottom of your left navigation or the Video Tutorial Library from the top navigation on your screen. Very helpful step-by-step directions!

Each link goes to a step-by-step tutorial in PDF format. Make sure you have Adobe Reader to view the files. 

SMART Exchange Resources

The SMART website is a good resource for training and tips to enhance your lessons. Whether a beginner or more advanced, you'll probably still find something new. A good place to start is http://www.smarttech.com. (This is different from the SMART Exchange where you can download lessons.) On the top navigation, go to Resources and click on Training and Professional Development.

Scroll down the page and you have a few options. I suggest checking out the Free Resources or the Training for Education sections.

The Free Resources section has short tutorials or PDFs with step by step directions.  (Find the "more" button to expand each section to browse said tutorials.)

Many of these are much like the other tutorials I put on this blog. Short, step-by-step, with pictures to help you learn to do one thing at a time. As someone who has not actually taught with a SMART board in my classroom (I had Promethean), everything I've learned about SMART has been self taught or learned by searching resources like this. I was very excited to come across these guides. I learned some new, very fun things to put in my notebooks.

Like the magnifying glass:

And the Magic Tunnel:

I recommend revisiting this site often to find new ways to add interaction to your lessons.

Introducing Sumdog!

Sumdog is actually a pretty neat site that is easy to implement in your classroom. It is basically a site with math games for students. The students get their own account and avatar. The incentive to play and do well is as they play games, get right answers, and earn coins, they can use their rewards in the Sumdog store. The store allows them to add things to their avatar, like new clothing, musical instruments, sports equipment, or even play other games.

To get started, go to http://www.sumdog.com and register for your FREE account. When you do, you'll be given a username and a "request to join" will be sent. Another teacher at the school will have to log in and "approve" you to join before you will be able to log in. This is just a safeguard to make sure the correct teachers are making accounts for the correct school.

Once approved you'll need to add your students to create free accounts for them. It will give you usernames and passwords for all of your students.

If you go to "Students" and select your class, there is also a print out that you can pass out to the students with their information already on it. Just hit print. Have them keep it in a safe place. They can access the site from school or from home.


The URL you will want students to use for their "quick login" is:
http://www.sumdog.com/sch/southwest-elementary-school

*Give this to students to access at home and add this page to your favorites (or Symbaloo!)

The other thing you'll want to do is to restrict student skills. All the games are the same for all grade levels, but each student plays according to their skills. If you don't restrict the skills you could end up with a kindergartener trying to do a multiplication problem in their game. (Unless, of course, you have a kindergartener who is able to do a multiplication problem.)

To do this go to "Southwest" at the top of your screen.
Choose "Skills"

Choose "Students"

Edit by choosing "restrict their skills"

Then you will be able to choose according to grade level. You can always go back and change this for students who are experiencing difficulty or need more challenging games.

Now your students are ready to play!

Other information you should know to start out:
The Sumdog Blog has great information:

You can get students to join national, state, and county competitions. Just another way to give students an incentive to play.

• The only thing you can track with a FREE account is when students have last logged on. You are not able to track skills. 
• You can create challenges and activities for your class for FREE up to 5 times. I would use them wisely. But definitely try them out!
• Parents can make their own FREE accounts or they can pay for their student's account. When a parent buys an account our school gets credits towards more paid accounts. Please share this information. http://www.sumdog.com/en/Families_information_for_students
• More resources can be found at http://www.sumdog.com/en/Classroom_Resources
• How to Videos: http://www.sumdog.com/en/Teachers_Help

Sign up, try it out, and let me know how you think it works for you. 

Creating a Symbaloo Webmix

Need (or just want!) all your bookmarks in one place? Need them to be accessible from any computer?

Check out Symbaloo. I wrote about it before here.

Now I'm going to go through again and give you step by step directions again on creating a webmix and then how to get the URL to make it a page accessible to anyone.

First, you'll need to have a Symbaloo account. It's free and easy. Just go to http://www.symbaloo.com and register.

Now that you've done that, follow the directions below.

1. Click "add a webmix" from the top of the screen.

2. Choose a name for your mix and hit "create my webmix"

3. To add tiles, hover over a blank tile and it will say "add tile". Click.

4. At the top of the screen you can type in the name to see if there is an existing tile. Popular sites will probably already have a tile made. If you can't find an existing tile, click "create  your own tile".

5. This will bring you to a screen where you can put in the website for your tile. Choose how you would like the name to appear and check the box if you want the name to show up on the tile. Choose a background color and an icon for your tile. Then hit "create tile".

6. Now click and drag the tile to where you would like it to be located. You can always move tiles to new locations or delete them.

7. Once you have put all your tiles in you can access the webmix whenever you are logged in to Symbaloo. If you would like others to be able to access your webmix or to be able to save this specific webmix as your homepage on student computers you will want to hit "share".

8. Enter in the name and a description if you'd like. It's not necessary though. Click "share my webmix"

9. On the right side of the screen you will see your URL. Copy this address and share it wherever you need.

If you want it to be the homepage on student computers, go to the computer and log in as a student. Open Internet Explorer and type in the URL for your webmix. Then find the icon on the top toolbar that looks like a house. Click on it to make this Symbaloo webmix the homepage.

Now when students open Internet Explorer they will have the webmix right there. You can put common sites that they will access regularly all right there. You could also create a webmix with sites specific to topics you are working on right now. Change out the homepage as often as you'd like. If you are doing a research project, just have students type in the URL to get to a webmix you create of sites specific to the project. Since they aren't logged in and won't have an account, students won't be able to edit (read: delete or change) anything on the webmix. So it's safe for everyone to use!

You can check out the one I made for a 5th grade project here: http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/explorers4


Online bookmarking websites are not new, but this one is fun looking and user friendly.

The Wonderful World of Edmodo

I've heard of Edmodo, visited it once or twice, and didn't give it much thought until I took a look at it again recently. It's totally amazing. (And yes, I just said totally.) Edmodo is a FREE(!) online community for your classroom that allows teachers and students to interact. It's kind of like  a Facebook-Wikispaces-gradebook-Gaggle-Blogger all rolled into one. To add to the awesomeness, there are many ways that Edmodo is 100% safe for students to use and gives the teacher full control of all content.

Start here. When you create your (free and 5 seconds to make) account, your basic dashboard looks like this:

You can add a picture and a few details to your profile. You can join groups (you might notice I've joined the Edmodo New User Group) or create groups. For use in your classroom, you'll want to create groups for your class as a whole group, by subject, or maybe even by reading or word study groups.

You can then add assignments:

 Quizzes: (That can be automatically graded. Time saver!)

Keep track of grades:

And store files in your library so you can access them for other assignments and posts:

For more information, I highly encourage you to visit the Edmodo Blog and watch several of the webinars that are available to view at any time.

Excited yet? Who wants to use this in their classroom this year?!

Morning Routines

As we approach the beginning of the school year we know we will have students who are new to interactive whiteboards, or at least need a refresher course. A great way to get students used to using the board is by making it part of your morning routine. Plus, you're already starting the day out using technology!

Check out Promethean Planet or SMART Exchange and search for "lunch count" or "attendance". You'll find plenty of templates, even by holidays and seasons. You can download them and change them as you'd like. An added organizational bonus: Use "save as" to save each lunch count/attendance to a special folder and refer back to it if you can't remember when a student was absent or how many students ordered pizza.

You can also change these templates around to use them as a poll for anything from gauging student interest to asking students to predict the weather or what will happen next in the book you are reading. You could have students use their own names or simply use shapes or icons to make the voting anonymous. There are also a few morning calendar routines on the sites, but you may want to use them as a jumping off point to creating your own.