Gaggle, You Tube Education, and 2 More Resources

Welcome to your Tech Tips of the Week, Blog Edition.
Featured: Gaggle Tips, You Tube Education, Scholastic Storia, and Internet 4 Classrooms Online Tutorials

1. Gaggle:
I gave you an introduction to Gaggle a few weeks ago. (Get started here.) I have seen quite a few classes start to use it in big and small ways. Some teachers use it to have students turn in assignments from the computer lab. One class has begun using the discussion boards feature under My Classes for students to open dialogue about the novel they are currently reading. And, I can see in Gaggle Tube that many teachers have been saving videos to their My Videos folder for streaming in class.

These are just a few examples of the Gaggle use going on here at school. If you are using Gaggle in the classroom, share how you are doing it by leaving a comment below.

Also, I have saved some Christmas Traditions videos in my folder on Gaggle. You can access these videos through Gaggle Tube in the "School Library" folder. Just click on my name. Tip: When saving videos, I find it is good to add tags to them for easy organization. That way I can save many videos, but not have to scroll through all of them to find them. When saving a video, make sure to check "approve for student use" so students and other staff members can look through your videos too.

2. You Tube Education:
Now accessible here at school! You Tube started offering You Tube EDU a little while ago. Similar to Teacher Tube, You Tube EDU has thousands of lessons and educational videos to stream right to your classroom. You can make your own account and add your own videos as well. Our county recently opted into You Tube EDU on our network, so we can browse, search, and watch videos from a defined set of educational content. This means that sometimes you may come across videos that are not accessible on our network because it is either not suitable, or doesn't fit into the defined set of terms. I recommend searching for videos to use while you are here at school or at least testing if your videos will open here at school before committing them to a lesson. The great thing is there are many videos to choose from and unlike Gaggle Tube, you have the ease and flexibility of searching like you would regularly from the web instead of going through Gaggle Tube. (Both are great options.)

3. Scholastic Storia:
Storia is a new download from Scholastic. It is a way to download e-books purchased through Scholastic but with a few more features, like a dictionary and read aloud. Check out the site. You may not have tablets to download these ebooks in the classroom, but you can use the app with your devices at home or share this new resource with parents. Really neat!

4. Internet 4 Classrooms:
Internet 4 Classrooms has online technology tutorials available here. If you need a refresh before starting that Power Point project or want to see some of the differences between Word 03, 07, and 10, check them out here. The Web 2.0 Tools link gives some great tutorials on tools you can use in your classroom to make your lessons more engaging or to help you get more organized.

Happy Teching!

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.