As Dr. Carpenter specified, teachers in Grades 2-8 will be communicating with students and parents through class blogs. She therefore asked me to help teachers in those grades who are new to blogging to learn the basics of this highly useful communication system. She also asked me to acquaint all teachers with the basics of two other very useful online tools, Google Drive and Dropbox.
In today's workshop teachers of students in Grades 2-8 will therefore focus on Items 1, 2, & 3 below, while 3K-Grade 1 will focus on Items 2 & 3. At Dr. Carpenter's suggestion, I am also making available near the end of the post a collection of Creative Online Tools you might find useful in your instructional activities.
Please don't hesitate to ask questions at any point. We should have plenty of time to help you learn to use these valuable online resources.
1. Blogger
To learn how to blog, we will use the post of a previous workshop I did at CCS. Click here to go to the post. I will walk you through it. An experienced blogger will also assist you.
2. Google Drive
Google Drive is an extremely useful tool, both for personal use and in teaching and learning. It allows you and your students to create, collaborate on, and share a variety of documents, including text, presentation, spreadsheet, and drawing documents. Click here to go to Google Drive. If you are already logged in to Google, you should be taken straight to Google Drive. If you are not logged in, you will be asked to do so.
I will now walk you through some of the basics in using Google Drive.
If after going through the basics you need to review and/or learn even more, click here for an excellent video on using Google Drive. You can also find helpful information at the Google Drive Help site.
Hey, just for grins, here's that video, in case you want to get right to it.
3. Dropbox
Dropbox is a useful site at which you can store files and then access them from any computer. You can also share the files with others whom you specify. Again, I will walk you through the basics, while also providing this video in case you need to review some of the basics. To begin, click here to go to the Dropbox website.
And here's the Dropbox video.
Bonus: As some of you have more experience with some or all of these online tools, I was asked to share a clickable list of Creative Online Tools I have been compiling the last several years. Please look it over and try out some of the links that might be useful.
Thank you for participating in today's workshop. I hope you will be able to make effective use of these various online resources. Please don't hesitate to write or ask me or any other of our colleagues for assistance in the days and weeks ahead.
