Continuous formation

My poor colleague. She's an organizing freak and spent way too many hours clicking away inside the Teams app rearranging all the files into folders.  Then I showed her that she can Sync the Teams folder onto her Hard Drive (giving her offline-access anytime!) and use the drag&drop of regular Windows Explorer to keep things organized. Head  over to Teams and go into the Channel that holds your Files, then click on the Files tab.  Highlighting does not show on the app; that's me using Windows10 Snip . You'll notice that there's a SYNC option ... when you click on that you will get a pop-up letting you know that the syncing will start.  You can choose to sync everything within that Teams Channel or only select particular folders.  This can be handy if you want to avoid download all those old video files, say, but always have the textbook and last year's files available even if you're at the cottage without internet.  This creates a whole new SECTIO...

A nice feature now in Microsoft Forms : File Upload! (Remember that all of Office365 -- including Forms and OneNote-- are free to teachers & students ) This is a great option for both Forms and Quizzes... you can now ask people to do work in OneNote and then screenclip it ( using the built-in Windows10 Snip like here ) and then upload it alongside their multiple choice selection ... just for example.  It's also useful for asking folks for Word documents (recommendations?), PowerPoints, etc.  When you create a Form or a Quiz you can have your respondent give you a file (or files).  It's hidden under the "more" of the question type: When you choose File Upload, you get a pop-up that a folder will be created in your OneDrive; it's under the APPS folder (that may also get created the first time!).  The name of the folder is the name of the Form/Quiz.  You can specify the number and maximum size of the files -- and if you choose the 3-dot More you ...

This builds on my earlier post ( link here ). After my session at the OAME Conference ( link to Presentation ), a few folks asked me how I had put this together, so I'm going to give a brief run-down here. You're always welcome to ask me for more information, of course, if I've been too brief. I used Microsoft PowerApps -- it's a quick-and-dirty way to make an app that uses your existing data and then you can muck around with the data, add more and then store it somewhere else. What's nice is that the Apps are universal -- they work on the laptop, iPad, iPhone & Android phones. There's a web app version so they will work on a Chromebook too! PowerApps are meant for quick development and refinement and for most users and applications in schools it's free . If you're not an Office365 school, or if your school blocks you from using PowerApps, you can sign up for your own Office365 just as a faculty member! ( link here ) It gives you acces...

I kinda run on some basic principles when using IT -- it's gotta be free, increase teacher efficacy (modulo some smal learning curve), reduce time spent, it's got to digitize content and I have to be able to to work with the data to find meaning. So every other year we get inspected by the Ministry of Education and her most recent feedback has been that we need a way to record evidence of observations and conversations in our classes -- and provide a structure for how they are included in the grades of our students.  Now we have read Growing Success ( link to PDF ), the guide to assessment & evaluation in our province and we thought we were doing really well with discussions, debates, Harkness, one-on-one conversations, videorecordings, student screencasts, Flipgrids, well, you name it. But NO.  She wanted evidence of incidental noticings, conversations-in-passing -- those ephemeral interactions with students that build up our gut-instincts of what a student knows a...

So I was in the Lounge the other day and one of the teachers mentioned that she heard I used Excel for Visibly Random Grouping and asked me to explain it (previous blog post) .  Well, I use Excel just to assign my students to one of five tables - at the tables, they can sit in whatever arrangement they prefer.   Well, she wasn't happy with that so asked if she could have a tool that she could design her seating arrangment (sometimes a U, sometimes groups, sometimes rows/columns) and have the students randomly assigned in that. Well I did a few searches online and there were a few apps but many of them cost money (no way, buddy) so during a class coverage where the students had free work time (i.e. I didn't have to actual teach or ensure they were doing something) I whipped up an Excel macro (well, VBA, but you know what I mean) that would let her design the seating map and then drop the students in randomly. You are welcome to download the Zip file and use/edit it as ...