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Showing posts from August, 2018

Collaborating, without having to work

It often takes folks a bit to get used to OneNote because there are no "files" -- there are only pages, like a Binder, and everything is placed on a page.  So, when students do their work and present it for feedback, it's on a page.  What's great is you don't have to find, open and manage all those files -- all the student work is already stored & organized inside of OneNote for you. When it comes to group work, we have the same luxury. In the Collaboration Space, I create a Section for the activity -- usually I title it with the date and the name of the activity. Then, I create the first page (or two) with the instructions for the activity ( Opening Day Activity in the example above -- we start in the Collab on Day One so they can get used to "playing" inside the OneNote) and any templates or rubric as subpages ( How to give feedback and CopyThisPage in the example above). Each group (or each student -- this work for individual activ...

Differentiation of Product

Now, as a math teacher, "differentiation of product" means something completely different... but for this purpose it means -- don't expect every student to respond to your request for evidence of understanding with the same learning artefact. This is well stolen from Vanderbilt University (https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/di/cresource/q2/p07/ ) Now, even as a first year teacher way back in the 90s before I really knew about differentiation of product, I encouraged students to present their mathematics projects as diversely as possible.  But OneNote has truly given them complete freedom and ease of submission. Inking  -- first & foremost, student mathematical work tends to be handwriting.  Most of my students don't know LaTeX (although I have had a few of my students, from Grade 9 and up, learn it once they were told it existed and was what 'real' mathematics authors use.  Interestingly, OneNote (and Word & PowerPoint) supports LaTeX .  ...

Getting info easily - Microsoft Forms

So, as I'm getting ready for our training for new Faculty I thought I'd put together the steps for making a survey or collecting data. You can see some of my other posts on Microsoft Forms by clicking the link . 1. VISIT http://forms.microsoft.com and sign in with your Office365 ID/password.  Or click on the FORMS button in the Waffle.  Or click the FORMS button if you're in OneNote. Remember that you or your School can sign up for Office365 for free. Button in OneNote Button on the Office365 Waffle 2. To keep this short, I'll only be covering Forms part of Microsoft Forms, where you just collect data without "grading" or "providing feedback".  There's a whole Quiz part of Forms that I'll cover later.  Too much all at once.  So, CLICK on "New Form" or, if you already have a Form, click on its card. (You may also have Forms that have been Shared With You or Forms that you have access to as part of an existing Group, s...

Our Faculty OneNote

Sooo... we do everything in OneNote. I mean, everything (see here: Link ). So the problem was, we were having OneNotes for everything and it just got to be too much.  Instead, we set up a School OneNote ClassNotebook for administrative use.  Every teacher is a "student" in the ClassNotebook (except for me as the tech guy, and the Principal, who doesn't teach). Yes, we could have use Staff Notebooks but (a) I like keeping things together and (b) the only difference is nomenclature. Microsoft should have just changed the ClassNotebook content to reflect leaders/learners rather than have two mechanisms.  But hey, they don't always listen to me :) Once I have the Notebook set up, I make some Sections and Section Groups in the Content Library. The first is the Faculty Handbook, followed by some School specific content.  My Section Group for all tech things, is titled with an Underscore character( _ ) so that it is always listed first in the Section Group listing. ...