Work Faster in Google Docs with These 10 Useful Keyboard Shortcuts

Check out this great post from Better Cloud Monitor on ways to be more productive in Google Docs.

HOTSpot - Sean - HOTSpot Sean Gift Yourself A PLN with Twitter

The best gifts are the ones we give ourselves! The time for teaching on an island is over and education has so much to give and share. But, we can’t receive these gifts unless we open them up for ourselves. Twitter is a fantastic box to open for our professional growth and development as educators. No longer can we rely on others and “In-Service” days to solely help us get better...we need a Professional Learning Network of our own. If you’re not on Twitter, get yourself signed up and just follow. You don’t need to post or interact...just read and take and grow. Here are a few people and groups that I’d recommend following to start out with:

People - @alicekeeler @gcouros @rmbyrne @mickie_mueller @plugusin @ cybraryman

Groups - @ice_il @isteconnects @googleforedu @edtechteam

HOTSpot- Amanda- Quizizz Review Game

Students love review games, but often after playing another Kahoot I feel like they aren’t really reviewing, but instead, just playing another game. Some students get left behind or even give up once the realize that they aren’t fast enough. For this reason I’ve started using Quizizz in my classroom as a review option. Quizizz allows students to review in a self-paced environment. You can even assign the review activity through Google Classroom for students to complete for homework or continue to review at home before the assessment. In the classroom you can use Quizizz with a team approach to have groups work together to assess whether or not they understand the material. Providing a self-paced review environment while maintaining the “fun” factor really provides meaningful review opportunities.

HOTSpot - Cory - formLimiter for a First Come Approach in Forms

Google Form now has an add-on that is able to automatically turn off ‘accepting responses’ when the form has reached a particular date or a specific amount of respondents.  It is an incredibly simple add-on that is sure to make tasks  like signing up or deadlines a smoother process.  Simply click on the puzzle piece in the upper right hand corner and choose what sort of limit you would like to set on the form.  

HOTSpot - Chris - Using YouTube Live and Google Slides for interactive online review

Reviewing for final exams is always a hot topic this time of year. For many years, I have run after school review sessions that were often sparsely attended and inconvenient for my schedule to stay after school. Last year second semester, I ran my first online review session and it was a hit with the students and was much easier for me to schedule. This year, I decided to tie in the Q&A feature of Google Slides to allow my students to ask questions. What is great about YouTube Live is that the whole session will be recorded and posted on my YouTube Channel. Hopefully, the technology doesn’t get in the way of learning and makes this a simple online review session.

HOTSpot - Sean - Marrying Google Docs & Drawing

A lot of times we want our students (or even ourselves) to be able to communicate and display their knowledge in both written and visual formats. Google allows us and our students to do that very smoothly by integrating a seamless way to use Google Drawing INSIDE of a Google Doc. Check this video out to see how easily this can be done!

HOTSpot - Shona - Bitly URL Shortening

Utilizing Bit.ly is an easy and effective way to share a URL without writing the lenthy website address. Go to Bit.ly.com and sign up. Once you have signed up with your school account, you can start to create your shortened URL and customize it so it is easy to remember. Please note that your new URL is case sensitive, so keep it simple. You can either remind your audience of this feature, or make sure you don’t capitalize anything. Personally, I like to capitalize each new word and remind the audience that the URL is case sensitive.

HOTSpot - Chris - Welcome to the new Google Sites

The dark ages of having to know html and web design are gone now that Google has revamped their Sites platform. If you have been hesitant before to create your own website, fear no more. The newly redesigned Google Sites uses a very easy drag and drop method of web design that was made popular by other web design companies such as Squarespace and Weebly. The benefits of using Google now are 1) its free 2) it works well with all other Google products and 3) it is now stored conveniently in your Google Drive with all of your other Google goodies. Check it out today and stop by the HOTSpot for more help.

HOTSpot- Amanda- Video Response and Student Reflection for Assessment

Giving your students opportunities to demonstrate what they have learned via video can be challenging not only for students but teachers as well, but look no further- Recap to the rescue! Students can easily create an account that is connected to their Google login and join a class section that teachers have set up. Teachers can create up to 10 questions in a single assignment, and students respond to each question at their own pace. At the end of the assessment, students can reflect on how well they feel they have learned the information, and teachers are able to send the video links to parents, co-teachers, etc. Teachers are able to leave written feedback and commentary on student videos. Check it out today at https://app.letsrecap.com

HOTSpot - Sean - Reversing Order Of Forms Data Collection To “Newest On Top”

I am not a fan of Google forms collecting data by putting the newest entries at the bottom. I often reuse forms with my students (I have some that I’ve been using since 2012) and can’t stand having to scroll to row 750 to find today’s entries. However, if you create a second tab in the spreadsheet and plop a simple formula in cell A2...all can be fixed. The formula pulls from the original data entry tab. So, if you make sure that tab is named “ENTRY”, just use the following formula in cell A2 of the new tab and you’ll be good to go: =SORT(ENTRY!A2:H,1,FALSE)

The only thing you’ll really need to pay attention to are the items in red. 1. “ENTRY” needs to match up with the exact name of the original data collection tab. 2. “A2” is in fact the top left cell from which you want to start pulling data. 3. “H” is the furthest right collumn from which you want to pull data. Don’t put a number after “H” so that it will continue to pull data ALL THE WAY down column H, even as new entries come in.

HOTSpot - Cory - Pre-quiz Questions to Quell the Anxiety

So, a student comes in and tells you that they did the reading you asked, but they just have a few questions before the quiz/work for the day. The challenge is having an outlet to address student questions without having a class conversation that gives away ideas or summaries that you want to assess on a quiz. A simple Google Form allows you to get an automatic email when someone has taken the time ask a specific question (with pg. reference) so that you can choose to address that with the class or simply with an individual. It is a helpful tool for the students to have at their disposal, and an opportunity to gauge preparedness.

HOTSpot - Chris - Reinforcing vocabulary with competition and collaboration

Vocabulary is a big part of my curriculum and teaching it in an exciting way has always been a challenge. Usually it is done via lecture or just assigning kids to make flashcards to prepare for some sort of quiz. Enter Quizlet Live! Quizlet Live creates an exciting and competitive gaming atmosphere by having kids work in teams to try and answer all the vocabulary based questions the fastest. What is great about the set up is how the teams work together. Only one member of the team will have the correct answer on their device, so it creates instant collaboration and conversation. Quizlet Live also keeps track of which terms were confused with each other the most and can be shared with the class following the game. It is a great way to spice up that boring vocabulary lesson.

HOTSpot - Shona - Using Google Slides to crowdsource

Using Google Slides as a tool for crowdsourcing has many benefits in your classroom. It can be utilized in various ways with various tools as showcased in Sean’s video. This two minute video specifically outlines using crowdsourcing with Google Slides. The following are some benefits of using Google Slides as the tool: 1). Creating a structured platform where students have some autonomy within their slide, 2). Having an automatic presentation platform when they teach the rest of the class content, 3). Giving students access to all content when the slide show is complete.

HOTSpot - Amanda- Assigning Tasks in Google Docs, Slides, and Forms

A recent update to Google Docs, Forms, and Slides allows you to assign tasks to individuals without opening any other programs or apps. You can do this by typing + or @ sign and then the individual's email address. After you add the comment you can click “assign,” and it will automatically send the individual an email with the assigned task. This feature could be used to follow-up with students who are designated certain parts of an assignment and remind them of the tasks that need to be done, or you can use it to remind co-workers that they need complete certain tasks. Google Docs also will pick up on certain words and turn them into suggested tasks. Although this doesn’t work all the time, it does work for certain task oriented words.

HOTSpot - Sean - Casting Student Screens to Projector

A recent update to our Chrome browser now allows us to smoothly, with a small amount of setup work, fling student Chromebook screens (or any device running the Chrome browser) to the teacher computer. Assuming this teacher computer is connected to the projector, this means you can project a student screen to the class with this cool tool! Just check out the video for a quick look at how it works and then dig in. It plays VERY nicely with Google Classroom. So...if you have students set up in your classroom, you can connect them all with one click. Good luck and happy casting!

HOTSpot - Chris - Layered Learning High Level Questioning and Making Metaphors

Using metaphors and analogies is a standard practice in science class when describing many of the abstract concepts that kids have a hard time understanding. Often times it is the teacher giving the kids the metaphor or analogy for them to memorize which is helpful but doesn’t really help students “own” the connection being made. Starting this lesson with a video representing the non biology related part of the metaphor and asking students guiding questions got my students in the right frame of mind of the connection I wanted them to make. Using EDpuzzle is perfect for this because it pauses the video a key points to ask these questions. I found that adding the questions as comments instead of free response allowed me to choose how I wanted to collect their answers. Using the question feature on Google Classroom worked perfectly for this because I could control if I wanted to keep students’ responses private or them to see each others responses to promote discussion. Following the video, my students then got to show their creative sides by explaining the metaphor and representing it both visually and verbally using Google Slides. Not only could they collaborate in groups on one slide deck, it was easily turned in through Google Classroom. I was able to put all of the students work into a shared class folder for everyone to see and use as a study aide for the assessment. Layering all these simple technologies together really helped turn a “sit and get” lesson into a lesson involving creativity, critical thinking and collaboration. For more layered learning ideas, check out David Freeburg’s website. He is a Google Certified Educator and Director of of Technology and Digital Curriculum in Minnesota.

HOTSpot - Cory - Reading Comprehension Quizzes: “I read, but I just don’t remember!”

Reading comprehension quizzes have always been a challenge in regards to accountability. It is difficult to walk the line between making it too easy for those who did not do the work or too hard for those who did what was asked. Socrative has a student based navigation quiz that allows them to move back and forth through their questions without immediate feedback. What I have found useful is to pair this type of quiz with 30 sec to 1 min of time in the text you asked them to read before they have to turn the quiz in. The students who have read or taken notes on the material tend to find this very helpful and less stressful, while the students who have not read or organized their material are looking for a needle in the haystack. After having given a few this way, it encourages the students to have their texts well read and organized in case they get that minute of precious time.

PowerSchool Pro Progress Feature

I was clicking around in PowerSchool Pro, making sure all of my grades were up to date for this current progress period and I happened upon a nice little feature in the Progress charm that sits on the left side of the main page. PowerSchool Pro quickly and easily allows you to see how students grades have changed from the pervious progress report with a few simple clicks. It even shows you who's grade has gone up or down since the last progress report with corresponding arrows. It is a great, quick check to see how your students are doing with very minimal work involved.

HOTSpot - Sean - Project Management Pace Tracking

Managing productivity and pacing when working on long term projects is difficult. As teachers, it’s our responsibility to provide our students with tools and skills to do this successfully. The tool I use with my students, google spreadsheets, is nothing that’s earth shattering. I used the spreadsheet to help my students create a system / map for them to follow while working on long term projects. I not only talk to them about goal setting and pacing, but also accountability for their time. We discuss the business world, especially consulting, and the need to document and bill for time. This tool has proven to be successful in helping keep students on pace, prevent them from becoming overwhelmed, and give them real time feedback on how effectively they use their time to be productive. Feel free to make a copy (from the link above) and use it for yourself and your students.

HOTSpot - Shona - Sharing Pear Deck Data

Pear Deck can be a really powerful tool for formative assessment, student engagement, and collaboration. But, you can take your Pear Deck lessons to a new level with your students by utilizing the feedback options in a few different ways. And yes, both of these feedback options can be utilized with Google Classroom. Recently, I had a class brainstorming session where students collaborated answers for each slide. In order to be able to share the entire classes feedback, which was optimal for this lesson, I collected the feedback/evidence in a google sheet (shown in the video) and shared the sheet with each person in the class. If you would like to take it further, you can utilize the explore option in sheets to analyze the feedback/data. Please note that multiple choice and free response questions work best for this type of feedback. If you plan on using Pear Deck in a less collaborative manner and you would like to share individual responses with each person, you may do so by using the feedback option and the students will have their own responses in their Google Classroom folder. All question options are accessible to the student via a google doc that outlines personal responses.

HOTSpot - Sean - Rubric Creator

I’ve learned that getting kids involved and invested in what they’ll be graded or judged on is a crazy powerful thing. Five years ago, I committed to implementing a 20% Time project into my Advanced Accounting course. It was a good deal of work to get it up and running, but has been worth every second that I put into it. The passion that students show for a problem that THEY have identified and a solution that THEY have chosen to come up with for that problem is amazing. In this process, THEY also choose the specifics on which they will be graded. I spend ample time talking about project management, goal setting, and the importance of the process instead of just the end result. This process includes an important decision about how they’ll be judged and evaluated...or in their world, graded.


The world of handing over decisions and ownership to students can be overwhelming and daunting...for many reasons. From a logistics side, rubric creation can be tough enough for teachers...let alone students. This is why I love Rubistar, a simple rubric creation tool that not only can teachers use very easily, but they can also put the creation in the hands of students. With this smooth tool, teachers can feel very comfortable turning the “judging” process over to the kids to let them have a voice in how they are graded.

HOTSpot - Mandie - URL Linking

This election year I have shared out many articles for the kids to read. Of course, I hope that their excitement for Government will be enough to keep them accountable but that isn't always the case. I've been looking for other ways to track if they are actually reading what I'm sending and recently was reminded of Google URL Shortener. Google URL Shortener gives you the ability to not only shorten any URL quickly and conveniently, it also allows you to view analytics to see if people are really clicking on the link. The other great thing about Google URL Shortener is the ability to share the short URL through QR Code or simply copying and pasting either in Google Classroom, Twitter, email, or on a Google site. No more need to search for the URL in an email or document because your account is synced with the Google URL Shortener, so you can revisit at any time! Happy shortening!

HOTSpot - Chris - My Simple Show

I was really dreading teaching about the properties of water because it can really be a dry topic (pun intended).  Wanting to change it up and make my students do more of the work to learn the material rather than me just giving it to them via lecture, I thought of having them make their own video cast. A few days before that lesson was coming up I found this awesome web tool called mysimpleshow.com on the Free Technology for Teachers Blog by Richard Byrne. What intrigued me the most about it was how simple it was going to be for my students to use, which meant most of the time was going to be devoted to learning the material and presenting it in a meaningful way. Looking back on this lesson, little time was wasted teaching them how to use the website, and the final products turned out really well. Definitely another tool to keep in my toolbox. Click here to check out some of their end products.

HOTSpot - Chris - Taking Notes on EDpuzzle

Using video can be a powerful piece of anyone's curriculum. Whether it's a video of you or something you grab from YouTube, giving students the ability to watch, rewatch, and pause can make a big impact on students who learn at a different pace than their peers. The problem I found with assigning videos, as I would a textbook reading for content, was that I didn't give my students a way to purposely take notes to record their understanding. EDpuzzle was great at adding questions for formative feedback from the kids about their understanding at the time they were taking in the content, but there was no takeaway for them. With the help of our Literacy Coaches, I realized that this piece of technology offered a whole lot more than what I was using. Using the comment feature of EDpuzzle allowed me to purposely pause my students at key points in the video to take notes, reflect, and record their understanding so that they now had something they could take away.